quilt
a baby quilt 2 years in the making
I started this quilt before Harvey was born. It was supposed to be a baby quilt for a few-month-old to lie on top of, but the finishing stages were such a pain in the ass that I never got it done. I made a valiant effort to finish it before last Christmas, but I stupidly thought I would save time by not changing the foot on my machine. That 10-minute time saver turned into six hours of ripping out stitches. At the rate of an hour a month. If you're a quilter, you don't need me to warn you to change the foot on your machine before quilting. If you're not a quilter, DON'T START!
meticulously randomized color gradations.
Anyway, I finally got the last of the bad stitches out and decided to make a go of finishing it before Christmas this year. When properly executed the finishing wasn't the end of the world - about four or five hours all told, and I did it in two days during naps and nights. Boy did that make me feel stupid. Because, you know, here's Harvey now with a tiny quilt he can't much use, that I could have finished when he was 6 months old if only I stayed up an extra few hours.
he relaxes after opening presents
Fortunately Rascal redeemed the project by lying right on top of it as soon as the quilt was spread. We even used it later in the afternoon to protect my in-laws couch when Rascal wanted to take a nap. So all's well that ends well I guess.
I love the look of quilting, but it turns out that I hate almost every step in the process. I hate cutting fabric, especially geometrically. I hate lining up the top layer with the batting and backing. I hate making bias tape only slightly more than I hate buying it. And I hate the long boring and crazy-OCD-making process of quilting. The only thing I like is sewing the pieces together. That 1/10th of the process is so satisfying.
I've been debating whether to start some sort of blanket for the new baby. A knitted blanket plays more to my strengths, but a nice patchwork quilt would use up some scraps and not require the expensive outlay of a full blanket's worth of yarn. But, you know, would fill my house with cursing. Decisions decisions.