Onward!

Besides the time I spent yesterday doing a little of whatever I hope to be doing in the coming year, I also spent a lot of time thinking about the best way for me to move forward. I have to take into account that I'm going to be unable to do anything for awhile. I don't yet know what limitations my surgery will place on things, but I'm determined that it won't stall my quilting.

I want to finish what I started and continue working through the Quilter's Academy books. I got stalled on this, I know where and why, I just have to figure out how to get past it. It's the silliest thing really, but I'm having a hard time following the method for straightening the material. I've always done it slightly different. I'm going to go back and follow the instructions step by step and give it one more try.

The fabric straightening wasn't the largest issue, however. I kept thinking about how many quilt tops I have that aren't quilted. I've pieced a fair amount of tops, but I've only ever finished quilting one. I knew that working through the book would add to how many tops I have in the 'to be quilted' pile and I really am tired of not really finishing quilts.

One thing Harriet has suggested is to learn to quilt them at the same time, so you actually finish each quilt. I thought that was an excellent idea and spent some time trying to figure out how best to do that.

I knew that I could also use Harriet's quilting book. I have read through this book and in Harriet's style it is excellent. However I have never liked using monofiliment thread in my quilts and that has always kept me from doing it this way. Then late last year I stumbled across Leah Day's site. I was completely inspired.

I knew my machine set up, though fine for piecing, would simply not work for quilting. Harriet talks about this in Quilter's Academy Vol 1, even for piecing. But I figured I could deal with the set up since I couldn't afford a new table.

Although I have talked to my husband about doing a cutout in the old desk I was using, he wasn't really confident about doing the work without destroying the desk. So, for my birthday I asked for one of the tables she sells.

So now my sewing setup looks like this. As you can see I still don't have the ideal setup, but I'm really amazed at the difference the table makes in my piecing, being level as it is. I still need to figure out what to put to my right when I'm quilting. The room is small and I don't have a lot of options, but my friend Yvonne has suggested that I put my ironing board to the right when I quilt and I think that's the best solution for the moment.

Eventually I'd like to get a better setup, but I have a fairly small room and have to deal with what I can.



So, it's onward from here....