Sewing… Whaaaat’s that again?!

So…
… it came to my attention yesterday that I had not blogged about anything sewing of crafty related since January when I showed the quilt I made for my friend Tammi for Christmas…
Well! How slack indeed!

Considering I originally started this diary purely as a sewing blog, I found that fact quite shocking.
Understandable, but shocking never the less.
However, it is a very true representation of how little (or NONE!) sewing I have done so far this year.

Which explains the little bubble of creative discontent I have had going on recently!
This week that little bubble was starting to boil, and get all mad on me… so today I decided to spend some time working on a project I started back in the Christmas holidays:

With a little help from my bobbin winding helper:

Hannah’s first time using the foot controller – she was SO excited!!

(and after giving my machine a mighty good dust and clean I might add) I got started sewing the rest of the rows together…

I had already done 5 of the 11 rows back in December, so I figured it was a nice easy-to-finish project to get me back into the swing of things…

I was right and before long my helper and I had then entire quilt top sewn together:

Abbie is there for scale because as you can see it is a BIG quilt.

A little bigger than I bargained for in fact…
** Ahem.
You see, it appears that I either got my maths a little wrong in my design, or was having a “what the heck was I thinking” moment, because it ended up way, waaaaay too big!

No such thing as too big I hear you say?
Well, unfortunately there is when I knew it would be too big to fit in my (generously family sized) washer and drier without risking them breaking!
I am sad to say that I know this for a fact – because I already broke my washing machine once when I washed my king sized cheeky quilt in it.
Oooops.
$200 later to get it fixed and I won’t be making the same mistake a second time!!

So what to do, what to do…
Well, after some brief deliberation I decided that the fastest and easiest fix would be to cut 5 inches off from all around the outside:

I have to say that I’m so relieved I went with this option, because not only is it now the perfect size, but I think it looks much more interesting with the thinner border around:

Somehow it just makes the colours all pop a little more.

I have to say that I just love how this quilt is turning out!
It is simplistic for sure, but I’ve used all my favourite colours and fabrics in it so to me I just see all the special fabrics that I’ve hoarded for ages.
Talk about a great stash buster!

But because of the very simplistic design I’d really love to splash out and get this quilt long armed, so that the quilting can really be a feature!
(Because MY quilting skill on a quilt of this size would run to stitching in the ditch – and I really think it cries out for a little more than that!)
Mr Flutter has given me the A OK to get it quilted, but I just have 1 small tiny problem:
The fabric I was planning on using for the back is too small if I get it long armed.
DOH!

Then tonight I realised – spare fabric from the front (which was put aside to make coordinating pillows), and slightly too small back –
Hmmmm… just piece a bigger back!

I’m such a lazy bones that I really didn’t want to have to piece a back!
(It’s horrible working with such big pieces of fabric and I really get a fear of it all turning terribly wonky on me.)
But I’ll just have to get over myself and do it, because my desire to get this long armed wins over my laziness for a change!

So watch this space – hopefully I’ll get a chance to finish the back in the next week and I can get it all sent away.
Then I can actually get a big tick against my first project for 2013 – Woo hoo!
(lets just not discuss the fact that it’s already nearly May though shall well…)