basted!

I was thinking this morning about Kathy, and all the women who went to QuiltCon,

and wondered if they settled back into life yet.

I still don't feel like I've fully recovered from all of the wedding hoopla.

(I mentioned we'd decorated, but I failed to tell you that we spent two entire days

to do it.

(not counting prep work and my guys making an 8ft pillar)

I was so proud of my gang!

And when I was starting to fall apart

because nothing was looking like I envisioned,

(and it was taking twice as long as I'd anticipated. ahem)

Brandon said, "You can't judge until it's finished.

And when it's finished, if you don't like it,

we'll just add more - because it wasn't really finished yet."

Which, really, is great wisdom for life in general, don't you think?

 ~

So.

We left off with Ties That Bind in one of those 'not really finished yet' states

(even though I'd make it according to my plan)

and instead of making the additional dresden plates and

finishing it (for real)

I made an entire quilt!

But once I got that out of the way,

I dove right back into my fiddly dresden making.

(the smaller the plate, the more trouble it gave me.

And the fewer blades it took (?!) One only used 13! What. The. Heck?!)

forgive the crappy phone pictures. again....

I got the top finished on Monday of last week,

two days ahead of my projected date :-)

and Tuesday,

I got started on the back.

I really didn't want to piece a back

and almost ordered widescreen in black for it,

But then I thought, 

I already have all these fabrics left over,

I really should use them up.

I don't know why I have such a hard time using all of the fabric I bought for a project.

I just want to keep all the fabrics.

Sheesh.

Most of my leftovers were roughly fat quarter-sized

and I just pieced 18"-27" rows about 87 inches long

until I had enough to equal about 100 inches,

then sewed my rows together

and finished the back on Monday.

Tyler met me at the church yesterday while the kids were at TKD

and we got it basted.

Took the entire can of spray.

I was praying that God would make it last, and it did.

Whew!

(There's not much spray on the last half of the top section.

Tyler said, "You'll just have to quilt it gingerly.

I was like, "Baby. 

There is no quilting a queen size quilt on a small domestic machine

gingerly.")

I am so pleased with it so far,

but I'm always a bit nervous at this stage.

Right now, I've got a perfectly lovely (though not yet held together..) quilt,

what if I ruin it with my quilting???

I was much more confident quilting on my Janome.

She was such a good friend machine!

sigh.

I won't get to start on it today - today, I am helping out my friend Hannah,

she's got a prom dress (with sequins) that needs to be taken in a bit.

But tomorrow?

Tomorrow,

I quilt.

these colors are much more accurate!

Linking up with the inspired, (and inspiring) exhilarated, exhausted QuiltCon attendee (and teacher) Lee.

p.s - all the wedding decor ended up looking exactly as I'd pictured in my head.

Maybe even better :-)