One Small Step...

Ok, I was really not digging the Christmas String Quilt, but I had made a promise to my self to finish anything I started in 2008: hence the internal guilt to finish the quilt. So, while Ryan and Sophie were in VA I finished putting the top together, layered and basted it, and got the middle quilted. I hit a standstill there. My excuse was it was the holidays and I had company visiting from out of town, but truth be told, I did not want to finish this project.

I had a few moments tonight, so I sat down at the machine and said "I am going to stipple the borders." Mind you my idea of stippling is calling my nearest long armer and seeing how fast she can fit it in her schedule. But in an effort to be a more well rounded quilter and more economical at that, I really wanted to improve my machine quilting skills in 2009. Things started out ok, and then it started sounding like a train was running over a Mac truck. My stitches were fairly even, but I thought to my self this can not be right. So, I ripped out what I had done and retried. Same Mac truck vs train noise.With a new bobbin, cleaned bobbin case, needle and adjusting my speed it only sounded like Mac Truck vs train for only about half of the time. I never noticed this sound with my old darning foot, (it was plastic, but my new one is metal). So, I am guessing I need to work out my speed and hand movements. To be on the safe side though I am going to take my machine in next week while I am out of town and let it get a check up.

But what I am excited about is that I did finish it tonight. It is stippled in the borders and the binding is machine sewed on. It is still a far cry from my favorite quilt ever made and the quilting certainly won't win any awards, but I am proud that I perservered and finished. So, Doreen, there might be hope for me after all!

Once I get the binding sewn on, I will wash it and take a picture and mark it as a UFO finished!

**This was also a GREAT stashbuster! I made all of the blocks I sent in to the swap from stash, my borders, back and binding were completly from stash. The batting was even stash batting! I will only count the binding as stash used for the week, because I started the process earlier, but still I am a half a yard down with no fabric purchased this week!