I am feeling a lot better now than I was last week. I am still sniffling and still coughing but I have some energy returning now. Yesterday morning I got caught up on the house work and the mountain of ironing. That made me feel better.
Yesterday afternoon I worked on my quilt. I am getting so cross with this quilt. It just doesn't seem to want to go right at all. The wadding will not lie flat. I even tried ironing it and it still wrinkles. I did get fairly cheap polyester wadding maybe that is the problem?
Wadding (Batting to my Merikan friends) varies considerably in price. At the cheaper end you have the polyesters and at the more expensive end a mix of bamboo fibres and silk! To use that for this project would have cost me about £50 so I stuck to the cheap stuff.
My other problem is with the tacking gun that Simon got me for my birthday. It seems like such a good idea in theory but it just doesn't work in practice. I have tried not using many and using loads and either way it goes wrong. It doesn't hold the fabric layers together and as you sew they move and you get a ridge.
I must confess that when I first heard about these guns I thought that actually put in a proper Tacking (basting is what you Merikans call it, I think) stitch with cotton. Sort of a mini hand held sewing machine just for tacking. They actually use little plastic tags. You know, like you get on clothes in store?
They are a bugger to cut off too. The instructions actually say that you can leave them but why would you want a quilt covered in little plastic tags? Weird. To get rid of them you have to get your scissors or little snippers in between the tag and the fabric and cut.............being very careful not to nick your fabric. They also leave holes to. I think they may vanish when it's washed and the fibres seal together again. Hole is probably the wrong word..........it's a puncture mark. Anyway, the wretched thing is useless for quilts, I guess it could be useful for other things.
It seems there is no alternative but to tack by hand. Although...........I have read about something called basting spray which you spray over the quilt, add the wadding and spray again to attach the back. Now I wonder if that works? Anyone know?
So, after snipping away all the little tags and unpicking several rows of stitching and the re-ironing, I set about tacking. I eventually got it done and begun on the sewing. No mean feat as this is quite large. I have it about three quarters quilted now. It is OK, but not great. I have to learn a better way. I am hoping to get the quilting finished today and then it will just need binding. It is for a Christmas present so I hope the receiver appreciates the blood, sweat and tears (not to mention swearing) that have gone into it!
Once it is finished I need to get on and make some little tiny quilts for the dolls bunk beds that are Ellie's Christmas present. I am trying to get on with a few things as Christmas will come around fast and with the house move on the horizon time is going to be short.
I have all the normal house work to do as well so it is set to be a busy day. I need to go up to the local shops as there are a few things we are running out of. I am trying to keep my stocks low again so that we don't have to transport too much to the new house.
I guess it is time to move myself and get on with the day.
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