Customer Quilt ~~ finish

I've been so involved with trying to get my website up and running--correctly, thank goodness--that I really haven't been blogging anywhere. Here or on Blogger. In fact, I've pretty much abandoned Blogger for good. If you go there, you'll find my last post is really just the instructions and links to get here. Thank you for coming! Hang out while, won't you?

In the meantime, I had a customer quilt to work on. It was actually a duvet that she purchased and wanted me to turn into a quilt. My original idea was that I'd stuff the batting in, smooth it out, then load it and quilt away. Nope. That duvet had other ideas. Richard watched me (lets say he tried to help) struggle until I was mad, winded and sweaty. You know how I hate to be sweaty, right? It was getting pretty rough inside that duvet. Yes, at one point I actually climbed in. 

He had a suggestion. I tried it. He helped, for real, this time. That duvet was having none of it. We struggled and fought and I decided that the end was happening. But first I'd rip it apart. Yes, that's exactly what I did. Rip it apart. Load it up like a real quilt using the top and bottom pieces and adding the batting like a regular quilt. Then came the cranky part.

Can you see the shredded piece of thread? It would eventually break, but sometimes I caught it early enough to cut it and save time rethreading the machine beginning at the tension all the way to through the needle.

A pile of wasted thread from the shredding and breakage. Frustrating when it happens a time or two. This many times? Wow. Just wow.

That duvet simply wanted to be a duvet. But, hey, I'm a persistent chick. The thread problems were unreal. The screen-print had some sort of ink that simply hates needles and thread. Can you believe this? I regularly had to cut the thread, pull the shredded part through the machine, and rethread the needle. And the ink just ate at the needles. They would get dull and then chop through the knit-like fabric. It took days. And patience. Yes, lots of patience. Then I had to add a binding because the edges were raw, but the binding was the easiest part of all. How about that for those of you who hate binding?

 In the end, we parted company, except it left in a whole new form. And Crystal was happy with her quilt, which was to be a birthday gift for her little boy. Plus, I learned a valuable lesson: stick to my cottons!

I hope you're having a fabulous week! Our niece is getting married on Saturday and we're excited to be able to attend her wedding. That will be a fun little getaway that I'm especially looking forward to. 

This World So Fierce (more updates)

 That's right! The ebook for This World So Fierce will be available for immediate download on Monday. Exciting, right? So how do you get it? Easy-peasy. Go to Amazon.com and do a book search for This World So Fierce Mary Marcotte. I know, it's kind of long so copy and paste that bugger. Here's the thing: adding my name brings it to the top of the menu--no additional searching. 

You can, absolutely, purchase the book and download it immediately to your computer, tablet, or phone. (This is starting to sound like a commercial. :)

This World So Fierce (all the updates)

 News and updates about my recently published book is right here.

© 2020. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

Names: Marcotte, Mary Bourque.
Title: This World So Fierce: a novel.
Description: Pennsauken, NJ : BookBaby Publishing, 2020.
Summary: A teenager is thrust into a new foster family and must learn to cope with strangers.
Identifiers: ISBN (Print Edition): 978-1-09833-262-4 | ISBN (eBook Edition): 978-1-09833-263-1 |
Subjects: Young adults. | American South Literature--fiction. | Foster family--fiction. | Louisiana--fiction. | Rape and recovery--fiction. | Surrogate family--YA--fiction.

How Do Scissors Disappear? Discovery Edition

 

I’ve been working on memory quilts for a former student who now has two sweet little boys who outgrew their baby-t0-4T tees. When she asked me to make the quilts, I almost said no. But, well, you can read that article HERE if you need to catch up. After Jude’s quilt fiasco, I wrapped it up and began work on Jett’s quilt. It’s not quite the same size but there were several small onesies, and not as many regular tees as Jude’s.

 

I fudged it a little and added more blue fabric, but it was beginning to feel like the shirts were swimming in the ocean. (Note to self: don’t watch Adrift if using lots of blue background.)

Anyway, the second quilt came along smoothly, and I finished the top in record time. Again, however, I spent extra time on the quilting. It’s just too tempting to add those little touches, a spiderweb for the Spiderman shirt, Christmas trees, pumpkins, valentines, etc. It’s my way of making the quilt extra-special and also keeps me from mindless stipples.

Don’t get me wrong, I love stippling. It’s the fastest, easiest, cheapest of all the ways one can quilt. However, it’s this mindless: I stippled my scissors into the quilt! Yes, you read right! It was all quite innocent and really could happen to anyone. But if you know me, you expect something like this. Anyway, I needed to adjust the batting as I was getting to the end of the quilting process. Scissors are like pens: I always have one in my hand. And I put them down anywhere, so I lose them often. This, of course, means that I was not at all concerned when I couldn’t find my little scissors that velcro to the machine. (Who knows where I put them down, right?)

Left, digging my scissors from under the batting. Right, the escapee is recovered.

I was zipping along and discovered a bulge in the batting, which I thought was really the batting. That is, until nothing would budge or give way to the quilting. As soon as I began an investigation, I discovered that missing pair of scissors. Luckily, I also have a seam ripper velcroed to the machine. I’m still laughing at myself.

Tagged memory quiltsquiltingquiltsscissorstee-shirt quilts