We did in fact find a "Captain's Bed" style bedframe for Oliver. Imagine me, 7 months pregnant, 75 degrees out, with a hand sander sanding an entire bed frame, 4 drawers, 1 cupboard door, and a headboard. Then, the insane crazy pregnant woman (ICPW) then applied 3 layers of black stain, sanding between layers. ICPW hated the look of the stain, not very dark even though it was supposed to be "ebony". ICPW then found a product that had pigment and polyurethane in one product, reapplied 2 coats (again sanding between coats). Finally! A cool black bed for Oliver. And one sore, tired, but oh so proud of herself ICPW.
THEN IT WOULDN'T FIT UP THE @#%$ STAIRS!!!!!!!!! ICPW lost her marbles. I cried, I yelled. We resigned ourselves to putting it back on Craig's List, but Shawn's "nephew in-law" came over and helped Shawn put it through the upstairs window a couple of days later. PHEW! If we ever sell or rent this condo, I hope they realize that the small bedroom will come already furnished. But I digress.
The quilt of insanity. Cool pattern. I should have known what I was getting myself into when I had to photocopy the cut list and construction pattern so I could highlight as I went so I wouldn't loose my place. It's called a "pixelated" quilt, based on 1 1/2 inch strips, ranging in length from 1 1/2 inches to 18 1/2 inches. The basic idea is that it goes together somewhat like the old 8-bit Nintendo graphics. A series of 1 inch squares and rectangles go together to form the pattern. Sounds easy, right? Easy, sure, time consuming...YES!!! All told, there were over 2,400 pieces.
Starting with white. You can see my stack of completed strips at the top of the photo. Did I mention that I started this quilt in February?
Stacks of completed colors.
I put the colors in numerical order on the counter (orange post its kept me organized), then started putting the pieces to form the horizontal strips. I about lost my mind, and I'm sure Shawn thought I was nuts as I muttered "A 1 1/2, E 4 1/2, G 2 1/2" etc as I put the strips together.
Piles of the strips, ready to be sewn together. The rows were grouped in sets of ten, so you'd put together the individual row, then put the 10 rows together to form a big chunk. There were 11 of these...
Individual pieces going together. They looked kind of like Tibetan prayer flags to me...
Rows made chunks, then all the chunks went together into the full top. Whew! That was a lot of work. Little did I realize...I made a quick back with some of the leftover strips and some larger chunks. I chose to quilt it myself, it was just straight lines, so piece of cake, right? NOT!!!
Imagine taking 15 lbs of fabric and batting, trying to roll it up or yank it through an area the size of the end of a standard shoe box, all the while trying to keep the fabric flat and sew straight lines as you follow a maze pattern that you are stitching at a density of a line every 1/2 inch...Add to it the ICPW hormones and you get my August. It took me probably a full 40-50 hours to quilt the d#$@ thing, but let me tell you, it turned out GREAT! I can now forget my sore neck, shoulders and strained eyes every time I tuck Oliver into his bed! The finished pictures below are off of my iPhone, so they aren't the greatest, but you get the idea.
A shot of the back-the stitching lines you see are the 1/2 inch quilting lines. IN. SANE. CRAZY. PREGNANT. WOMAN.Now that it's done, I LOVE it, but I will NEVER NEVER NEVER quilt another quilt myself. I'll make tops all day long (when you see Delilah's quilt and how perfect it turned out when I DIDN'T quilt it myself, you'll understand), but I will never do the final quilting myself again. There are just too many talented long arm quilters out there who like to do it for a reasonable price!
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