OMG, I've finished it!

The top, that is.  Not the quilting or the binding, just the top.  Needless to say there were a number of hiccups along the way, one of which was to discover I had inadvertently left off an entire set of 6 blocks, so I had to make individual sashing, slice them up some & reattach them to the sashing - it does look a teeny bit odd that one of the horizontal sets of sashing is a single piece, rather than the sliced up bits the rest of them are, but hey, will Miss 11-today* care?  I doubt it.


I have sewn on the borders, and on Saturday I will take it to the lovely ladies at Cottage Quiltworks, and they will send it onwards to the 'quilter lady', and she will turn it into a masterpiece.  Then I will get it back, stitch the binding on & it can go to its new home* looking like a quilt, instead of piles of fabric.  


So, Gentle Readers, were there any Lessons learnt?  As MBF used to say, "you bet your sweet bippy" there were.  No, I don't know what a bippy is either.  Don't ask, don't tell.

1. Don't try to cut the sashing by eye.  Use a ruler!
2. Don't try to cut the sashing in batches - find a big space & cut it in one go, even if it means paying to use a table at the quilting fabric shop for 3 hours.
3. Measure everything.  The biggest mistake was not checking that all the blocks were the same size, so I ended up having to insert another row of sashing to make it fit, because I'd left 1/2" on the end of a block.
4. Learn to count.  If I'd been able to count past 6 I could have saved myself lots of work this morning.
5. Check your bobbin periodically.  Nothing more frustrating than sewing on the sashing for the third time only to find the bobbin ran out 1" after you started (suggestion:  buy a machine that beeps when the bobbin is almost empty?)
6. Don't sew when you're tired.  It never works.

Oh, you want a picture?  OK.

This is what we started with:

And this is how it came out:

Of course you can see where it's wonky, and if you count up to the fourth row on the left, you can see where I had to insert another piece of sashing to get it to meet - the culprit was the previous row of blocks, which were all 1/2" longer than they really should have been.  Measure, measure, measure.  "Measure thrice, cut once".  Nag nag nag.  Blah blah blah.

Anyway, once it's been quilted, I will give you an update.  Apart from the wonky sashing, I'd quite like to do it again with different colours - remember these?

They're still sitting in my sewing room, dustbound... hmm.  Maybe after Christmas?  And, for those of you who just hang on my every word of domestic wonderfulness, I swept the floor in the sewing room.  Again.  Yes, I know.  Sickening, isn't it?  Here's the proof:

And now, Gentle Readers, my beautician has invited me to meet Dr Ho, who is going to talk about Chemical Peels.  I am off to enjoy a glass of champagne and good company, and come home with my original skin.  Some clever soul could come up with a pun based entirely around the concept of original skin, but today, it is not I.  

Ciao!

*PS Happy Birthday Nelly!