Cone Nebula - Ready for the Quilter

After a nearly three-month delay (since piecing the last block), I finally got around to the final steps of the Cone Nebula journey. I started the day by stabilizing the edges with bias tape. I have never seen this described anywhere, but I had been wondering about all of those little seams at the edges of the top. Last May, the quilt guild hosted Betty Ekern Suiter, whose quilts are utterly amazing. She explained her process and talked about how after the top is done she applies cotton twill tape to the edge of her top to stabilize the edges, and a light went on in my head. So, I bought a bunch of the sort of bias tape I use on dress hems, measured the vertical and horizontal dimensions of the quilt through the center, cut pieces of tape to those measurements, and pinned and sewed the tape to the underside of the top.

While I was sewing, though, I had some trouble moving the top around the way I wanted to. Can anyone figure out why the top seemed extra heavy?

(Come on! I am nothing if not consistent, and a picture of the Brat Cat is almost expected here, right?)

After I got the bias tape on, I pulled out the 90"-wide batting, carefully measured and cut a piece 10" longer than the top (the top is 124" x 109"). When I measured the batting I saw that it was really 94" wide. Cool. I needed to make it 10" wider than the quilt. 119" - 94" = 15" No problem. I chopped off a piece that I could cut into six pieces each 15" wide, I sewed them together and then sewed them to one side of the batting. When I measured, I started screeching. Aaaaa!!!! 119" - 94" = 25" Any blithering stupid dunderhead idiot child would have figured that out!! Aaaaa!!!! So, I got to make a second long strip for the other side.

I lightly lapped the pieces of batting and used the broken zig-zag stitch so that there are a lot of small stitches that just sink into the batting and hold it tightly.

With the second strip done, I set everything aside. I have e-mailed the quilter, and we have made arrangements to get together for the hand-off. I have never before sent a personal quilt to a quilter (I've sent a couple of raffle quilts off), so this is an adventure.

When I got downstairs, there was a mop of white fur on the end of the dining room table.

I started taking pictures, hoping to get something cute. I was rewarded.

Isn't she darling? Speaking of darling, I have to show you what I picked up from the school supplies area of my local big box retailer. I have now bought nine of these darlings and have my threads all organized by color family. It is so exciting. (And I only spent 59 cents on each of these!)

Finally, on the theme of darling, a dear friend of mine gave me a sweater's worth of Tahki Donegal Tweed yarn at the beginning of the summer. Hubby dearest had been asking for a new winter scarf. When I finished the Every Way Wrap, I pulled out the tweed yarn and looked for a suitable pattern. I am working off the chart for the center back of the Lough Corrib sweater from the November 2008-January 2009 issue of Cast On magazine. In the pictures below, the blue shows up well in one picture and the cables show up well in the other. The scarf is about half done at this point.

I'm pleased with the scarf, and so is Hubby. The next knitting project will be a pair of socks from the hand-painted yarn I bought last winter.

Thank you for stopping by!