The Largest Quilt She's Ever Made - Part 9 FINISHED!!

It's DONE! 

I stayed up binding late into the night on the 7th, and I got it done! Now it's all packaged up and reading to ship. The final size is about 113" x 100" aka too big to hold up in the air for a photo and not have it touch the ground. (Thanks to my husband and lovely friend who got in their day's workout helping me out.) The package weighs about 12 lbs. I calculated that it took about 33 days to complete the entire thing from cutting to binding, give or take a few days where I didn't spend any time on it at all.

Sorry, pre-binding photo, now it doesn't quite touch the floor.)

When I was sewing the binding on, I had a genius moment and this happened:

I normally fight my binding, having to unwind it as I sew because it is in a pile on the floor next to me, but this just fed perfectly. I guess this is just another perk of the sew-steady table. =)

This blog post was written while I watched the most gorgeous sunrise from my front porch.

The Largest Quilt She's Ever Made - Part 8 Quilting

The other night I got started quilting, and I quickly realized something felt off. My new machine sits about 3 3/4" above my table. For the past year I have been quilting on my little Viking Emerald, and it's lovely table with the drop down platform making my machine flush with the table surface. Of course that table doesn't fit my Sapphire, because she's got a big butt (therefore, I have dubbed her Big Blue).

So I quickly ran out and splurged on a Sew Steady table extension. Got home, went back to quilting. Got frustrated when I realized there was a TON of drag between the quilt and the plastic surface. **argh frustration** A friend recommended a Sew Slip, but I was already feeling guilty about the Sew Steady table, I couldn't do a Sew Slip + S&H on top of it - and how long would it take for it to arrive? No, I couldn't waste too much time. I needed something now!

Thanks to Google I found a few forum discussions about the Sew Slip and learned that there is a lovely kitchen product that works just the same for much less $$. I found this cookie sheet liner on Amazon for about $6, paid for the overnight Prime shipping, and had it in less than 24 hours. And it works!! Of course it's a pretty ugly brown, and it doesn't have a rubbery back (it is SUPER thin!), I just taped it on and went to work. My tape didn't even budge. 

 So I was back in business. Tedious business. There are so many different shades on the quilt and it is so long, that there seemed to be no perfect way to mark it. I chose tape, which turned out pretty well, but because of the size and bunching up I had to do to maneuver the quilt, I could only put on one strip at a time. See, tedious.

 I got through about half of the quilt (on the diagonal) sewing a line every 6". At this point I was thinking I'd do the 6" lines, then turn the quilt and do a cross hatch...and then probably go and add in a new line so I'd have a 3" spaced cross hatch over the whole thing.

 But when I reached that halfway point I couldn't stomach the thought of continuing on one tape line at a time for 3/4 more of the quilting. It made me want to pull my hair out!
So I got out the metal guide and attached it to my walking foot and did the second half of the quilt at 3" intervals just following using the guide. MUCH faster. Well as fast as one can quilt such a huge length of quilt.

 I worked late into the night, and was back to work this morning. After I had finished the second half at 3" intervals, I went and added the 3" line between my 6" lines (wow this story is getting tedious. Are you still following me?), and once I had completed that the quilting just felt done to me. Of course it was crumpled up on my table and lap so who knows how it looked. Would it be enough quilting? Would it look incomplete?

Maybe to some people it will look incomplete, but it really feels done to me. I think a crosshatch would be overwhelming. If you could see the whole huge thing in person, and could get a sense of the scale of the quilting with all of those squares you would see what I mean.
So there is a little peek for now. Now I get to slave away at the binding for a few days.

The Largest Quilt She's Ever Made - Part 7 - Basted!

Smooth sailing today. Phew! I got the backing sewn together, and then my most amazing and wonderful husband spent an hour out on the driveway spray basting with me. I don't know how I could have done it on my own. 

And you may think I'm odd for doing it on the driveway, but I've learned a messy lesson in overspray, so I avoid spraying it in the house.

All done and glorious!!

 In case you are wondering, I use June Tailor Quilt Basting Spray from Joanne's. I like that I can use coupons and it doesn't end up that $$$.

 And now it is rolled up, waiting in my studio, begging me to get started. But it shall wait til Monday. I met my goal of getting it done by the 28th. *Pats self on back*
My new goal is to have it quilted and bound by August 8th. I'll keep y'all updated with my progress.

The Largest Quilt She's Ever Made - In Which I Unpick A LOT

Remember Wednesday? How much progress I made, how smoothly things were finally going with this quilt? 

I woke up so excited yesterday, sure that I would have the quilt top pieced together and maybe even have a border added on before dinner time. 

I jumped right in to sewing. Maybe before I wasn't all the way awake . Or I was distracted by my cute children. Or I could blame the fact that I am still getting used to my new machine and the fact that it is smarter than I am. 

Either way, I started sewing. And I sewed all of my rows together for the second half of the quilt. Then I started sewing the rows onto the body of the quilt. I was about 1/4" through sewing the second row onto the quilt when I noticed my seam allowance looked a little bit. It was. And had been for the past 3 hours of sewing. 

My new machine has this lovely little feature where I just have to push 2 buttons and it sets the needle 1/4" from the edge of my foot. A very perfect 1/4" (unlike my old machine's 1/4" foot attachment that apparently is too generous and has already caused me problems with this quilt). 

So after getting super upset at the quilt for the umpteenth time, I walked away. Instead I spent the day moving all of my girls toys into the far side of my studio and tiding up their rooms. I think it was a good move considering all of their toys would migrate out of their rooms anyway as they came to be with me. Maybe our house will be a little less chaotic now - or at least the chaos will be confined to the basement. =) 

And yesterday evening I tucked in and started unpicked - well ripping, cutting, tearing would be more like it. My wonderful husband sat with me and helped pull off all the stray threads. We both ended up covered. And what took about 3 hours to sew took almost as long to undo. =( 

Do you think I can still meet my goal of getting it done by the 28th? I sure hope so.

The Largest Quilt She's Ever Made - Part 5

First, some photos from last week further illustrating all the trimming I was doing.

It started with some basic trimming I knew I'd need to do after piecing the squares. See all those bits of extra width? So I squared those up, and thought 'Yay! I'm good to go! Let's start piecing blocks!'

 WRONG! I found that after squaring all of those up that they were 1/4"-ish smaller than their non-pieced counterparts, which meant all of those other squares needed to be trimmed down to match. Grrr.

 So last week I got through that mess, and happily left the project at home while I had a weekend away with my husband in Park City. It was fabulous.
And Monday I jumped right back in full force. As of last night I had ALL of my blocks pieced. There are 6 different blocks, 4 square and 2 rectangle to offset the squares when piecing the top. This morning I had to do a bit of squaring up, but thankfully they all came out about the same size. Not perfect, but definitely workable.

 And so I started laying the quilt out. Last night I shoved a ton of stuff into the corner, stacking it up, giving myself as much floor space as possible. It is nowhere near enough. That is about half of the quilt laying out on the floor. So I'm working in segments and am glad it is such a scrappy quilt and I don't have to worry about what blocks go where as long as it ends up the right size, which so far it will with the help of a simple border from some of my leftover squares.

 And here is a peek of some of it all sewn together. =)

The Largest Quilt She's Ever Made - Part....oh who cares?

I've been working round the clock on this thing. It has become the boon of my existence.

Should be 6 1/2"

First - ALL of the squares are coming out smaller than they should. ALL of them. Which means that  I am doing A LOT of trimming off of scraps.

Small Joann's bag STUFFED with scraps.

Not only am I trimming off of my actual squares, I've had to trim down the non-pieced squares to work with the pieced squares. Remember 333 4 1/2" squares and 945 2 1/2" squares? Yeah, that is A LOT of trimming!
Now, I now that part of this problem is my own. I did not do what the pattern writer suggested and make a trial block first to make sure my seem allowance was just right. But I know seam allowance was not that off. I've used the same 1/4" guide foot for the last oh 40 quilts and they've all turned out quite accurate. I also double checked all my cutting measurements, those were good too. So what in the world is the problem?! Oh well.

So after far more trimming that I expected I started piecing. But before I started piecing I decided I better figure out how many of each block I need and set aside the squares for each block.

*Enter new bang head on brick wall moment here.*

As my blocks have been shrinking I have been PANICING thinking I would need to figure out a way to make this thing bigger. Do I need to add a border somewhere? Do I need to order more (more than 29 yards?! gasp) fabric?
The answer is no. I actually seem to have way too much. Like I will easily be making a baby/throw quilt from the extra squares I have been slaving over. How, how did this happen?! I don't know. I am not going to worry about it now. But I sure have learned my lesson - completely deconstruct a pattern, and work it out to your desired size before ordering fabric, and follow the pattern writer's advice at making a sample block and then go to town on the rest. It would be so much better for my health.

And so, after all of this drama, I am finally piecing blocks. And they are coming together qickly and beautifully. And if I somehow messed up on figuring it out again, at least I have a big ol' stack of spares to pick from and make more blocks. 

That's right folks, that is all EXTRA. Sigh

But look - progress!!

My goal is to have the top completely pieced by July 28th, so my husband can help me spray baste it before he heads out on a business trip. Pray it is going to be smooth sailing from here on out.

The Largest Quilt She's Ever Made - Part 3

It was another day with a lot of cutting. A lot of cutting that made me realize just how much piecing this quilt is going to take.

My day's efforts don't look like much...

45 - 8 1/2" squares cut into 9 pieces

95 - 7 1/2" squares cut into 5 pieces

196 - 5 1/2" squares cut into 5 pieces

and thankfully only about 40 - 4 1/2" squares cut into 5 pieces.

So as it stands right now, I have 3296 pieces to sew together. My head hurts.
How horrific would it be to get to the end and discover I calculated too big, or worse, too short? Let's pray I calculated correctly!

The Largest Quilt She's Ever Made - Part 2

I made some great progress yesterday cutting out fabric.

I started with this - that is a Large Flat-Rate shipping box full to the brim with fabric, that large blue piece is 10 yards of backing!

And turned it into this

45 - 8 1/2" squares

95 - 7 1/2" squares

196 - 5 1/2" squares

333 - 4 1/2" squares

55 - 3 1/2" squares

945 - 2 1/2" squares (which is why they are in that box) 

And now I am taking a break for a day or 2 while I work on my Bowls with Borders mini quilt.

The Largest Quilt She's Ever Made - Part 1

I just received 11 lbs (aka 29 yards!!!!!) of fabric in the mail. And if 11 lbs of fabric was not enough, I'll be adding a few coordinating solids as well.

It will be turned into this. Only king size.

Seeing Squares from the Empty Bobbin

Because of the sheer size of this project, I think I'll chronicle my way to the end.