Friday, April 30, 2010

My first *real* quilt

I finally did it, I stippled a quilt! I was going to use the scrappy quilt as my first try, but it is just sitting there waiting for me, so it was too much pressure. Instead, I made a new quilt on Sunday using Rainy Days & Mondays fabrics and some Kona white. It seemed appropriate since it was raining and almost Monday.


It was an easy quilt to piece and get ready for the dreaded quilting. I spent Monday and Tuesday after work quilting it. I'm not really sure why I was so scared to do it! Don't get me wrong, this white and pure looking quilt is definitely "R Rated" now after all of the cursing I did. I had so many things go wrong during the entire making of the quilt:

1. I slightly burned 2 squares while I was ironing it. What. the. hell. I think I need to clean my iron.
2. While I was quilting it, the backing folded under on one corner and I didn't realized for a little while. Crap. What a pain in the butt that was to fix. Then it happened again!! This has never happened to me before, and now it happened twice.
3. I was *almost* finished quilting, about to run out of thread, and my sewing machine decided to go ape-shit and skip stitches, have inconsistent tension, and generally piss me off. This is where most of the cursing took place. I stopped, cleaned the darn thing, then everything was fine again.
4. After ripping out all of those god-aweful stitches I didn't pin re-pin the quilt before finishing and I have a nice little fold (tiny-ish, but still!) on the back. Sigh. I left it since I was already running out of thread.
5.While binding it, I pricked my finger and got a couple of drops of blood on the back. Did I mention the back is completely white? BAHHH!!! Thank goodness it came out in the wash. I'm not sure how, but it did.


So anyhoo, after all of those mistakes learning experiences it is done! I washed it yesterday, and I love it. So does Meatball, can't you tell?

I definitely have some practice to do to get this stippling thing right, but for a first try I am really happy with it. I can't give it away because of the burn marks (you can hardly see them, but I know they are there) and that wonderful fold on the back, and like I said it is so full of curse words it would be wrong to give it to someone so I will love it as my own.

7 comments:

Kelly said...

Ok, I don't even know you, but this sounded SO much like my first time stipling that I just had to write! So funny! I clicked on your quilt picture from Flickr since I have these fabrics and haven't quite decided what to do with them. Great job--you can't see any of your learning experiences! :)

LJ said...

I bet our foremothers cursed a lot when they made quilts. Then they said a prayer afterwards I'm sure. It was the 1800's afterall. :) You made a very beautiful quilt!
I love your kitty, he has an awesome name!
LauraJ
http://www.flickr.com/photos/15517090@N00/

Angela said...

wow, this turned out wonderful! thanks for sharing your tips and pics : )

Erica said...

Thanks so much ladies!!

Mary said...

I just love this fabric line, and your quilt is awesome!

Erica said...

I love this fabric line, too, Mary! I wasn't sure what to do with it and this pattern worked out better than I ever could have hoped. Thanks! :)

Layne Bushell said...

Hi! I just hopped over to your blog after seeing these photos of your quilt. I quilt once a year with the girls that designed this fabric line and the rest of us wanted to do a quilt out of this fabric to celebrate their achievement! This is the perfect little quilt curse words and all! What is the size of each block?