Tuesday, April 2, 2013

The Scariest Thing

The scariest thing about finishing up a quilt is trimming the excess backing and binding away, and making the quilt "square." What I mean by "square" is four 90-degree corners and perfectly straight sides. Since the longest straightedge I have is half the length of my quilt, I have had to resort to more devious means of getting a perfectly straight edge.

I use a piece of string. I tape it down to the floor, or table, line up the quilt, set out my 16" and 12" right triangles and pull the string taut.Then I cut along the line.  Yes it's tricky, but there's nothing worse than a wobbly edge, or a crooked one.

I was pleased with this one. I had worked very hard to make sure it was square and the two opposing sides were the same length before I sent it to Chris to be quilted. And when it came back, it was very close to "true" so it didn't need any fiddling.

I've added the binding to the back of the quilt, now all ("all!") I have to do is hand sew it down to the front.

Oh, do you want another picture of the front?

and here's another one.

This little imperfection bugs me, but damn if that wasn't the hardest thing to get right. The quilt was extremely complicated to put it all together and get it right. So much tiny stuff to line up. In the end it was more important to get the quilt to lie perfectly flat.  I figured there would be so much going on in this quilt few people would notice unless I pointed it out.  Oh well. However, it does remind me that it's important to leave the evidence of you hand in a quilt, so nobody will think it was made by a machine.  It's not perfect, but it's perfect.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've worked with a lot of real boxes. The corners often don't line up perfectly. Just have Millie whap anyone who snickers.

Debra said...

look at a cardboard box, they're never perfect either ;-) I adore your quilt.

Just Ducky said...

Beautiful, the quilting with the multi-colored thread makes it more interesting.

Quiltdivajulie said...

Quit obsessing . . . enjoy your incredible, FABULOUS quilt!!!

(Love the quilting on the box flaps/opening)

Judy in Michigan said...

Beautiful, Amazing, Gorgeous, Awesome, Straight, Flat, Perfect!!

Anonymous said...

I can't find anything wrong with it??!!! I don't see how you can have done anything to make it any more perfect than it is!! We are always too hard on ourselves, I know I am!!