I’m knee-deep, quite literally, in quilting Triangle Madness, and finding it quite frustrating.
It’s frustrating in the sense that I feel like technical realities and limitations are getting in the way of what I would really like to do. All I’m really doing is outlining the white parts, and all I really wanted to do was double- or triple-lines instead of single. Not a huge difference, I know. But it’s bumming me out that I simply don’t have the patience, strength, or endurance to quilt a little more densely.
The issue is that each traced diamond in the quilt is its own discrete shape. One does not flow into the next, nor does it move easily from one edge of the quilt to another. So I have to rotate the entire enormous thing through the I-thought-it-was-a-good-size-but-now-seems-laughably-small throat of my machine, for EVERY SINGLE ONE.
Truthfully, I seem to manage at most five or six blocks at a sitting, before I have to walk away and rest. I am man-handling this quilt so much, I made it a point to do some of the outer blocks earlier than I would normally do, just in case the spray adhesive gives out with all of this tugging and shoving.
It would have been exponentially faster to just do straight lines from edge to edge, or to free-motion quilt it. And yes, technically, I could have outlined those shapes using my free-motion foot instead of my walking foot, but I didn’t think I could get as clean a corner that way and I didn’t want it to look messy.
At any rate, I believe I’ve passed the halfway point, so hopefully I can buckle down and finish it (OMG, FINISH!) over the long weekend. I’m ready for this quilt to be done and to put it into use, and I’m itching to start a new project or two.
Fingers crossed that my next post will be about my first finish of the year… and that I don’t get completely paralyzed at the thought of choosing a binding fabric.
