Project: B&W Memories Quilt, Quilting and Binding

I find that one of the hardest parts of creating a quilt, is choosing the quilting design. I am always very hesitant to start quilting as I don't want to ruin all the work I just did. In fact I have some quilt sandwiches ready to be quilted, but just sitting in my projects tub, because Im to scared to ruin them. With this project though I had to think fast and just hope for the best. I decided for time sake and because of the modern geometrical pattern of the quilt to do straight line quilting. My first thought was possibly an uneven grid design.

So I researched some ideas online and here were some ideas I found.

At Tallgrass Prarie Studio, Jacquie has a blog post called Straight line quilting hints and tips, I read through this and it really helped! I loved the idea of a crosshatch design, but thought maybe I should keep it more simple. So I decided to finally go with basic uneven spaced vertical lines.

Well as I started to quilt the lines my Sewing Machine Saga began! I will have to save the Sewing Machine Saga details for another day, but I have had a lot of trouble with my little Brother CS-6000i, now for a $150 machine this is probably expected, but very untimely! I made it through the quilting, but my orginally planned "Straight" lines were now "Organic Wavy" lines, from fighting with the bulk of the quilt through a 5.5" harp space.  It was now 12 p.m. and I was soooo tired, especially since I have a newborn baby keeping me up at night. So I called it a night. My husband was planned to leave at 10 a.m. the next day and I still needed to bind the quilt.

I woke up at 4:30 a.m. and started preparing the binding. I had just recently purchased the Clover Bias Tape Maker, to give machine binding a try. I usually whip stitch my bindings, but I needed a faster solution, and I have been a little unhappy with my past quilt bindings coming apart in the wash. The tape maker was so nice! It really helped save me time. Once I had the binding strip ready I went to town sewing the binding on. I got one and a half sides on and got a bad feeling. It occurred to me I hadn't stopped to check my thread tension at all! Just as I supposed my tension was completely messed up on the whole binding. I tried adjusting the tension, changing needles, rethreading, new bobbin thread, and nothing could fix my machine. I had just worked about 23hrs on this quilt with hopes to have it ready in about an hour, and my machine broke! I was so bummed. There was no way I could seem rip and hand bind it in time. I ended up taking my husband to the airport no quilt in tow.

Alyssa