Orange Crush - The Grand Finale - Bonnie Hunter - Mystery Quilt

It's time to finish this baby.  First things first, down on the floor we go to make a sandwich.

Next to the machine for the quilting.  I am getting a bit braver and trying some little circle things.  After running some test and play pieces, I put the machine in and away we go.  It looks so good and I am cruising along and soon have one quadrant finished.  As I adjust the quilt to move to another quadrant, I check the back and discover HUGE folds and puckers.  Oh no.  With ripper in hand, I head into the house to rip it out quick and make the fix.  I soon discover that those cute little circle things make it almost impossible to rip it out.  Now what?  I am crying by now and totally frustrated with the whole thing so I pitch it into a heap on the floor.  That lasts for about 5 minutes and I then pull all the pins and pitch it into the garbage.

A short time later, my sweet Mister retrieves from the garbage and says it is in "time out" for awhile.  Okay, I guess I can live with that.

This was all at the end of April.  Now, fast forward to October and I spend hours and hours and hours of evening jeopardy time in addition to about a week's worth of 2 hour mornings ripping out this dang quilt.  I have come to have a love/hate relationship with it but have determined that I will not let it beat me.  It's the end of November and finally, it is apart.  I think I need a new seam ripper.

Since I last tried to quilt it in April, I have been the beneficiary of a frame and mid arm machine gifter.  This time, hopefully it will go much better.  Today is December 7 and I really would like to close the chapter on this quilt before the end of the year.  It's going on the frame.  I am also going to try the same circle thing I was before.  Yep, cos I'm just that big of a glutton for punishment.  It takes me about an hour to get it loaded and ready to go.  I think I'm a bit hesitant --- stop it girl -- let's get this quilted.

It's going pretty well and the back looks good as it rolls up behind the work area.  Oh, is this really finally going to happen?

Everything goes swimmingly good and I start to notice that my batting is getting shorter and shorter.  Oh hell.  I turned it the wrong way when I put it on the machine.  THAT's why there is so much extra on the sides.  Ugh.  This is the first time I have used a pre-cut batting with the frame.  The previous quilts I've done used a bolt.  I keep going until it's dang obvious that I have a problem.  That is now all I have left and the black is the inner border, leaving me with the pieced and outer borders still.  It's not gonna make it.  What to do, what to do.  I trim the batting straight and simply lay another small piece from my leftover stack just barely on top of the other one.  Problem solved.  Well, at least as good as it's going to get with this one.  Hopefully the quilting will hold it in place enough.

A quick couple of rows later and it is off the machine.  I feel all along the edge and can't tell where the extra piece was added.  Hopefully I quilted it down enough.  A quick trip into the house to lay it out and have a looksie.

I'm on a roll and don't want to stop.  A quick trim of the quilt soon has me headed back to the studio.

Way back in April, I made the label and binding for this so it is a quick matter to pin the label on and get the binding attached.  Woohoo.

It's once again in a heap on the floor as I gather up everything I need for the hand work.  However, this time I am no longer upset with it.  I have a road trip to Abilene this weekend and the binding will go on during those 6-7 hours in the car.  I'll update when I get home with a pick of the finished quilt.  Oh my.  Yay!