I'm still making progress on Brian's quilt. I have until Tuesday midnight to finish it in order to meet my January goal.
So today - since we've moved onto plan B - I've made progress.
The first thing I did was lay it out on the floor. To know this house is to know that I have exactly two floors that I can fit a quilt on. The kitchen floor or the living room floor.
The living room floor was kind of busy. We're doing a lot of Plan B's this week.
The next step is to lay the 'batting' on top. In this case, my batting is an old blanket. I've been picking up old blankets from garage sales for years for exactly this purpose.
The guts were a little bigger than the quilt, so I cut it down to size, making sure to cut it to the seam allowance, not to the actual edge, to help prevent bunching in the middle.
Now to roll the batting into the quilt. I learned how to do this from Granny Pennala, and it's the only way I've ever done it. starting at the bottom/open edge - I begin rolling up - about two rows at a time.
I roll up, and then tuck the backing underneath.
I make sure to keep it nice and even on both sides.
Roll it again, and again, tuck that backing (the red flannel) underneath
It feels like a big pocket envelope as the steps continue
This is how it looks at the end of each fold. Fold, tuck the backing under, make sure it's straight - repeat.
And just keep going as many times as needed to get all the way to the top.
Completely folded, now it's time to reach into that pocket and begin unfolding.
When I reach into the pocket, I grab the corner, making sure to grab the batting and everything and start to pull it back out.
This next part Granny did a little differently. She would pull the entire quilt flat and then begin tying. Me? I start tying immediately while I can still easily reach. I tie that corner that I pull out almost instantly.
I then go on to tie that whole top row. In my opinion, it helps to keep that batting in place and is a lot easier to access than when the quilt is all flat on the floor.
When I run my ties - I run the yarn the whole length of the quilt and then tie one at a time - starting from the open end. Often I'll tie the first one to hold the yarn so I don't accidentally pull it through.
Then I tie, and cut, tie, and cut, tie, and cut.....
And just like that, the whole top row is tied before I even finish unrolling the quilt.
I'll then go about six or seven squares down both sides, again - to keep it all in place.
At this point, I was able to easily fold it all up and put it away in order to make supper. I don't have to worry that my batting went astray when I left it because it's tied in all the important places.
I can also finish tying it when the softer living room floor is cleaned up.
On Monday I'll be able to sew the bottom shut and call it done.
Life is good. :)
