Let's go back in time, shall we? About a year ago, Katy, at I'm a Ginger Monkey was hosting a Swoon Along for all interested quilters to make Camille's Swoon quilt pattern. I loved it and bought the pattern and made my first block. Challenging, but not too tough. Okay, I can do this.
I did some quick calculating and decided that if I only did one block a week, in nine weeks they would be done. Yeah...that so didn't happen. I don't know how long it took, but I did finally get it all put together. Then, I had to stop for Christmas sewing. Yes, that's right 11 months later.
January I bought batting and pin basted. I had decided to quilt it myself. What was I thinking??? I was thinking I couldn't afford to send it out, even if it was 91 inches square. So this is what I did to set up:
I got a pair of gloves. These came from the Traveling Stash box. I have never used gloves before, but you can bet I am a fan of them now. And yes, this poor little Bernina is what I quilted on.
It slides on my desk, so I put pieces of foam cabinet liner under the four feet. Worked like a charm.
I had to duct tape the extended top in place. It's the one thing that isn't made very well on the Bernina. The plastic "clips" that held it in place broke off a long time back. If you are doing any free motion quilting, it moves and falls off. Bad news!
And I put on my knee pedal to lift the presser foot so my hands would be free to wrestle the quilt. There is the roll of duct tape down there.
So I began...I cursed...out loud...a lot. This was harder than hard. I had to make myself go in there and work on it to keep moving forward. I think it took me 3 1/2 weeks. Finally, Sunday last, it was done.
Here is the binding, all pressed and ready to sew...I had no fabric for the binding, so I went on Etsy and found the checked red from the Reunion line which I thought was just perfect.
This is how I wind it to attach it. I put it on an empty spool and let it feed off of that. I don't use pins. Gasp!!
And here it is in all its Swooning glory. Quilted, bound, washed and crinkled. It is so soft and nice.
Here is the back. I decided to use big blocks of the rest of the fabric line and I am so glad I did. I love the way it looks.
See how nice the red checks are as a binding?
This is my last label from the first set I bought over a year ago. I just ordered some more and I changed it just a wee bit to a script font.
If you look where the grey and the green meet you can see some of my quilting stitches that are not very in the ditch. That happened a lot when I was trying to subdue the quilt to pass it under the needle.
I quilted around each star and a bit of straight line quilting coming from the corners. Very minimal, but about all I could manage. Will I ever do this again? Nope, nada, nunca, huh uh!!! But I do love my Swoon Quilt! Thanks for reading this far.
Talk to you again soon.
