Hunting Weekend Update - Day 3

I decided to write my day 3 update as I finish things so if it seems disjointed, that's why. I've been doing them in the morning, but Sunday morning we have church and Rebekah and Brian will be coming for dinner after church. I may not go as I still have a hefty cough that will be quite disruptive if I can't keep it at bay for the hour, but want to be able to post tonight in case I'm able to go.

11:30am First item checked off my list is marking the border of a table runner. I tested this for Tyanne some time ago. The quilting on this will be mostly outlining except for the border. It's very long, so I can't get a picture of the whole thing without it being distorted, but you get the gist!

12:55pm I've just finished a bunch of prepwork. These are things that I hoped to have finished before this weekend even started, but I was thwarted by the flu. The backs are now ready for nearly all the things that I want to baste. I have one more piece to mark (a piece of fabric that will be made into a bag, so will be marked with 1 1/2 to 2 inch cross hatching) and then I can start the basting process.

2:35pm The bag fabric is marked with 1 1/2 inch diamond shaped cross hatching. Now the basting can begin. I needed the table to be cleared off for marking, so I'm ready to go. This is the part I've both been looking forward to and dreading at the same time. I know that my back will ache and my fingers will be sore by the time it's all finished, but in the end I will have a pile of quilts ready for hand quilting.

3:40pm Noah's quilt is basted. Yay! That went a lot faster than I expected. I do pin baste a lot of the time these days, mostly for the time aspect. As I move the hoop, the pins within that area are removed, so once I finish the pins are out. Since this is for Christmas, the Joyful quilt will be put aside for now and I'll work on this one.

4:40pm The bag has been pinned and is ready for machine quilting.

5:00pm I just finished basting the table runner.

Now for the biggest project of the day, basting the ring flower quilt. This one will need to be thread basted, because I don't have enough pins, LOL, and it will likely be a longer term quilting project. I don't like to have pins in something for a long time, so will thread baste if I know I won't be doing something right away. This one is big, 92 x 92, so it will take a while. Hopefully I'll be able to get everything aligned properly the first time. Lately large quilts have been giving me fits when it comes to basting and I end up pulling basting and re-aligning at least once. I'm really hoping that doesn't happen this time!

It's 12:43am and I'm not quite ( but almost) finished basting the ring quilt. It's not been without it's problems. I very carefully laid everything out and basted a big middle section only to find that I'd mismeasured the backing and it was short on two sides. Ugh. I added a strip to each side and went along my merry way. I was nearly finished when I realized that somehow I ended up with a big tuck in the back so I've had to pull some threads and readjust, but I think I can now finish up.

Once finished, I may just sit for a bit and then go to bed. If I get a second wind, I'm going to set my machine up and do a bit of machine quilting on the bag or do some hand quilting on Noah's quilt.

Ruthie and Lucas have been great, hanging out with me and doing some of their own thing, allowing me to get so much done.

With just a few more lines to baste, I'm just about finished and am so glad. My back is protesting all the hours spent basting today, my bed is sounding better and better!

Happy Quilting (or sleeping!)

Sue