Nekkid, Clueless and Feelin' Good: May 8, 2001

Tuesday,
May 8, 2001

Ouchouchouch

I'm in the middle of quilting a baby quilt for my friends Anna and Andy (the folks I married last year). They now have a bouncing boy named Trystan who's recovering from some unexpected heart surgery (apparently he had a sizeable hole in his heart AND his aorta and pulmonary arteries weren't plumbed in correctly. However, the defect was the most easily repairable type, according to the surgeon, and Trystan came through surgery with flying colors and is doing marvelously according to the proud parents), and in keeping with their Fantasy Forestland-themed nursery, I patched together a starry quilt in blue and white that featured each astrological sign in the center of a Monkey Wrench patch, as shown at right. Trust me, this is right up their alley.

And then I ran into a problem -- because of the size of the patches, I couldn't put all twelve on one side without making a frigging huge quilt. No sweat, I thought -- I'll put six on one side and six on the other, and it'll be the perfect size for a baby quilt.

Which it is, except that the two sides don't align perfectly, so if I tried to follow the pattern on one side when I quilted everything together, it would come out looking weird on the flip side. Ah, but there's an easy way around this -- just use a general geometric pattern over the whole of the quilt, as the patchwork is busy enough to stand out on its own. With this in mind, I decided to use overlapping circles -- it looks nice, is easy to do with a compass and a dressmaker's pencil, and will cover the entirety of the quilt nicely.

Except that it's kind of hard to do on a sewing machine that's currently perched on an old treadle Singer (I have a small plastic extension table that slots onto the machine's arm and acts as an extra surface for quilting, but you need a big table for that and I don't really feel like moving everything into the kitchen right now). No sweat, either, I thought -- I'll just hand-quilt it! I have the big hoop, the extra-strong quilting needles and thread, and I always wanted to do this! Yes, hand-quilting is the thing.

And it's turning out quite nicely, thank you -- my stitches are still kinda big in spots, but I wouldn't call them toecatchers (think about it). The problem is, I don't have a thimble for my right middle finger, which is the main force behind "rocking" the needle through the fabric. My left middle finger, which is underneath the quilt supporting the fabric, is also getting pricked a bit, but it doesn't hurt nearly as much as the middle finger that is starting to sport a small but incredibly tender red spot on the right of the pad.

And, of course, all the sewing stores are shut and Tom Thumb's sewing section doesn't carry adjustable thimbles, and I need to have this finished before I leave for Sweden next week. Oh, well -- pain is good for me, right?

Ouch. . .ouch. . .ouch. . .

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