A Whole Lot to Handle

I began yesterday with a vague plan that I would get into the guest room to go through things, searching for stuff that may no longer need to be kept.  Since I'm moving this summer, and into what will be a smaller house, I'm trying to weed out the obvious (and maybe the not-so-obvious.)  I was procrastinating, though, but doing other things and then around 2 or 3 in the afternoon the doorbell rang.  I had already gotten the mail, but there was the postman bearing a large box!

It was the Terrain quilt back from being long-armed!  How exciting!  I opened it and unfolded it, and unfolded more, and more.  That thing is huge!  It is a King-Size quilt--about 112" on each side.  I know it is the largest quilt I have ever made.  It is heavy, too.  Of course, I had never gotten around to prep the binding, so the first thing I did was go upstairs and locate the fabric. 

Uh oh.  I have one paltry yard for binding an enormous quilt!  This doesn't look good.  But, I did the math, and yes, I did indeed have enough.  I cut bias binding, which I prefer for a bed quilt.  I like to cut my binding in 2 1/4" strips, and fold it.  Doing that was easy.  The whole time I was working on it I kept thinking how I was going to deal with that huge, heavy quilt while sewing on the binding!

My answer was this:

I cleared off the dining room table, made sure all the leaves were in, got rid of the extra chairs, and brought down my Bernie.  I set him up down on the far end so that the whole rest of the table would be free to support the quilt.

My problem with sewing at a table is that the cords become problematic, but look at this!  I pulled the right-side leaf out a bit and fed the cords through the gap, gently closed it again, and voila!  No cord problems!

Here is is, all ready to start sewing.  The table was the perfect solution.  I got the binding sewn down.  Normally, I machine stitch the binding on and then hand sew the fold around to the back.  However, on this quilt,  I'm trying something new--I'm going to machine stitch the second seam.  My thoughts are that I do not want to have that huge, heavy monster on my lap long enough to do the handwork.  So today, I'm going to do the second stitching.  I waited until today because I did the first stitching last night while it was dark.  Can you see the window in the dining room?  I'm going to do the "finicky" stitching today while there is bright light coming through.

Since I'm talking "Terrain," I don't think that I share a photo of the pillows that I began a week or so ago.  I got the backing fabric and it took no time at all to finish them.

Here they are, laying on the quilt.  I think the whole thing is going to look so awesome!



My only regret is that I don't have a king-sized bed to dress with all the things--the quilt, the coordinating bedskirt, shams, and now these pillows.

Aloha,
JoAnne