This Foot is Made for Walkin'

I finally started to quilt my quilt today. I didn't get very far because my family got home and I didn't want to be all antisocial, hiding in the back room stitching away.

My rig.

<--- I tried out my walking foot. It wasn't nearly as scary as I thought it would be. I had to tweak tension a bit, but that could have been because of the ridiculous amount of fabric under the needle. 


Wrestling with the copious amount of fabric on all sides of the needle wasn't too bad either. I may revise this opinion when I'm smack dab in the middle of the quilt, however. I'm definitely glad this quilt is on the smaller side.

I did have to break out my handy-dandy seam ripper. Both because of user error and also because I started to quilt "in the ditch" (sewing right on the seam between the connected fabrics) and I really didn't like the way it turned out. I don't trust myself to sew a straight enough line to make "in the ditch" look really good. 

To be fair, I wouldn't trust myself to sew a straight stitch to save my life. 

Please ignore the wonky lines and toddler foot.

In light of this, I've decided to do a sort of baseball stitching (I'm not sure what this is called in quilting). It's just stitching slightly to each side of every seam. I'm really liking it so far. It really makes the stripes pop without disrupting them. I don't trust myself to quilt any sort of designs yet, and I think any more lines would be distracting.

 I constantly have to remind myself to slow down when I start to move fast. It's just too easy for me to slip up a hand and shoot off  in the wrong direction. I'm just not comfortable enough with quilting specifically and sewing in general to move as fast as my impatience insists on moving.

Smasher smashing.

Smasher loves this thing. Every time I lay it out to look at it on the whole - or baste it, or fold it, or any number of things - he runs over to stand on it or sit on it. He cracks me up. I hope he still likes it as much when it is finished.


Sorry about all the crappy pictures. For some reason that room is always dark. I wish you could see better detail in the pictures. Oh wait... Then you might be able to spot my more subtle disasters... Never mind! Enjoy the dim (or overexposed), small pictures.

Total progress today.