Quilt Anxiety

Do you ever feel a little anxiety before you start quilting?  I always get the feeling of "what if I ruin it?".  I worked so hard on the top, I would hate for me to mess it up.  Anyway, I finally put together the quilt sandwich for my plus quilt last night.  I basted it with safety pins and then just stared at it, knowing that tomorrow it could be ruined by my lack of experience.  This is only my second quilt.

My work space (the dining room table) 

Today I started quilting it.  Not as easy as I expected.  You see, my very first quilt was a zig zag quilt.  That thing was a total bitch to quilt!  I quilted 1/4" away from the seams and I had to turn the entire quilt 180º about every 5 inches!  UGH!  I didn't think I was ever going to get through it, but I did and I vowed to never quilt zig zags again.  This time I am quilting straight lines, so I thought "this is going to be a piece of cake!".  I don't think it's going to be.  Honestly, I don't think quilting anything other than potholders will ever be a "piece of cake".  So far, I am two lines in and I am already thinking "holy shit!  what have I gotten myself into!?!"

my two lines

Two lines down... 64 more to go!

Clothespin Bag

My wonderful boyfriend, Curtis, hung a clothesline for me the other day.  The poles have been there since I moved into the house but the back one was hidden by over grown shrubs and there were never any wires strung between the poles.  The other day he cleaned up the back yard, cut down all of the shrubs, and hung the wires.  I was stoked.  I've wanted a functional clothesline since I moved in.  I usually use one of those collapsable wooden racks but it's just not big enough since we hang probably 50% of our laundry.  I wanted to make a clothespin bag for my new clothesline, so I got on pinterest and searched for a cute pattern.  I found this tutorial.  I made the bag today and it turned out great!  I wish I could make more but I just don't have the need for more than one clothespin bag. =/

Plus Quilt

A few weeks ago I started my second quilt.  It's this plus quilt from In Color Order.  I used the Flea Market Fancy fat quarter pack that I got in the mail a few months ago along with a pack of coordinating solids that you can find at Pink Chalk Fabrics.

After getting all of my fabric squared up and cut into 4.5" squares, I laid them all out on the living room floor where they would stay for the next 2+ weeks.  Putting together the pattern was a little difficult towards the end.  I had divided the fabrics into 5 color groups and I drew out a pattern on graph paper using five different colored pencils.  It looked easy enough on paper, but once I started getting to the bottom, I was running out of squares that I needed to make full symbols.  I had to do some swapping at the end but it turned out ok.   I took me about two weeks to sew everything together.  Not because it actually took that long but because I took a break for about a week and a half.

                                         

Yesterday I had to take my car to the shop and my boyfriend was at work, so I was without transportation all day.  It gave me a reason to work on the quilt all day.  I already had all of the blocks sewn into rows, I just needed to sew all of the rows together.  It only took me a few hours.  This is what it looks like now...

             

I am now waiting on my fabric to come in the mail for the backing.  I am going to use Kona Mahogany (the dark brownish-red solid on the front) and I am going to bind it with  Flea Market Fancy medallion red.