Basted

I love Cherrywood Fabrics. If you haven't seen them, oh well, they are gorgeous. Hand dyed fabric with a beautiful soft suedy feel. Mmmm. I treated myself to an early (very early) birthday present and splurged on some fabric, including two yards of turquoise to add as a border on my secret Amish solids L-O-V-E blocks quilt. I have so got to come up with a better name for that.

I told you how I ran out of basting pins while I was working on this puppy, right? I went and priced safety pins at the local fabric and sewing store. Fifty centimes apiece. That's 75 cents for every single safety pin. Are they kidding? So thread basting it is.

I need a lot of pins because I have to baste closely since I hand quilt without any kind of hoop or frame. Notice how my batting just isn't quite big enough.

I generally try to keep an extra half inch of batting and backing all the way around - I don't need any more than that. But this pieced batting came out about half an inch too short in one direction. Shoot dabnabit. But there it is. I'll leave it that way - no way I was going to take the time to add another inch of batting. I've done this before and it'll be fine. There is a spot where the batting goes up to half an inch into the quilt and I'll just stuff some batting there before I quilt it. Lazy Gal in action.

Oh, and I definitely baste on a table - have never actually used a floor and I can only imagine how much that would hurt my knees. I just drape the layers the best I can (I don't bother to stretch anything out or use tape or clamps) and then shift the sandwich around as needed to get each area.

The turquoise look great with Pokey's eyes:

So I've got a quilt to hand quilt on - finally! - but haven't started it yet. Instead I've been reading. I'll share the quilt book with you another day, but today it's geek time. I just finished Scott Lynch's book Red Seas Under Red Skies and it was excellent. It's an epic fantasy and sequel to Lies of Locke Lamora and believe me you need to read that one first. You've got magic, thievery and, in the second book, pirates. Very well written and enjoyable.

And I've also started sewing for yet another L-O-V-E quilt. What can I say, I'm on a roll.

The weather has gotten sunny and warm again. I walked up to Montmartre for an excellent Croque Monsier sandwich with salad and frites. So much for the diet, but it was worth it. The tourists don't seem to have left yet (and I can't believe how many Russians are here) but the Parisiennes are back. Yesterday our street was once again filled with cars honking. [I spell checked this, and Blogger thinks that should be: The Prisoners are back. Hmmm, I wonder if Blogger knows something I don't.]