Troubled Times at the Jersey Shore

Ok, I admit it.  I am not am accomplished line follower.  I envision myself as a perfectly adequate and even line follower, but I am not.  That said, I had more problems than just lines on the Jersey Shore.

I needed a back.  A lot of back!  So I perused my many many many yards of perfectly fine fabric in my quilt room, and nothing jumped out at me.  I needed something light, happy and Jersey Shore.  Nothing.  Well, I really don't want to purchase another 6 or 8 yards, so I looked harder.

I found this birthday fabric that I bought when Julie from Me and My Quilts was cleaning out a cupboard.  She had 6 1/2 yards of birthday fabric.  What did I need THAT for?  I have no idea, but it was a very good thing it called to me, because it was the ONLY thing that was large enough for the Jersey Shore back!  I guess I have a birthday quilt!  Yeah, baby.

I still had to piece it with a strip of dotty fabric down the middle.  It is a HUGE quilt!  84 x 84. 

So that down, I encountered a problem when I was loading it to the long arm.  With such a large piece of fabric I was having trouble getting it straight.  I took it off three times and tried to trim here and there and get it to roll straight. Aughhhhh!   Nothing worked.

I got frustrated and went to get my nails done.  On the way I called my smart friend Paula and asked for help!  She gave me a solution and it seemed to help a lot.  She is so smart!

So now it is loaded.  The Red Snappers were a godsend.  I couldn't have taken it off the frame three times if i had to pin, un-pin, re-pin each time!

I wanted to quilt offset circles.  I rounded up all the marker thingys I had and most were dried up.  I had a blue chalk pencil and a blue chaco marker.  They worked as well as possible.  It was me, I had problems drawing adequate circles.  I got frustrated and made Frank take me to Popeye's for dinner.

I devised a method of using the chaco  marker and a string to draw the circles.  Better, but still not perfect as you can see.  But I decided it was a Modern Quilt after all and it wasn't supposed to be perfectly even.  And i do not have a fancy machine with a computer doing all the work so it was going to be me or nothing.  I sort of got over the uneven lines.  Sort of.

After I got most of the first row completed, I noticed something amiss.  Can you see just above the seam allowance there?  The color of the circles is poking out of the seam allowance and showing through the white.  Oh great.  So why did you people not tell me this would happen?

Do I want to rip it all out and start over?  I decided not.

I did, however, stop everything and got my small scissors and trimmed around both sides off each of the remaining circles I could reach.  Not fun, I will admit.  I am thinking the Jersey Shore has no amusement park.  They must fight all the time, or something.

As you can see, I am not great at following those lines.  But I have already told you that.  I have to admit, I ripped quite a few lines out. 

I stopped at this point, because I can still go back and take it all out and just do straight lines.  A few

of them are quilted with straight lines, and I like straight lines, and I have the wheel locks that will give me straight lines.

It will be a pain to rip it all out, but I can do it.  After I get home from Carrie's.  She is having dinner a her house tomorrow.

That is an understatement, because Fayne and I are bringing most of the food.  Carrie called earlier this week and gave us our assignments.

I hope all you turkeys out there have a great and wonderful and safe Thanksgiving Day!