Spray Basting / WIP / Pre QuiltCon

First off: How many of you are going to Quilt Con?! I am so excited!! I live a mere 3.5 hours drive away, but I can only attend on Saturday. If you see me, please say hi! Also, I have tons of family in Austin and spend a lot of time up there so if anyone needs restaurant/bar/fabric shop recommendations, let me know! Now back to the present err, past...

Let me describe yesterday, which happened to be a typical winter day in Corpus Christi, Texas: we hit 80 degrees in the afternoon coupled with 65% humidity, and 40mph wind gusts with sustained winds of 20mph. Okay, okay, so it was 65 degrees day before yesterday and today and it isn't always this windy (usually 10-20mph is standard) but that just means in the summer it is at least 100 humid degrees outside, which means we have heat indices of 110+. Yuck.

Note: Do not ever try to spray baste an 84" x 84" quilt. EVER! Seven feet: What was I thinking?!?

But I digress; back to yesterday and my spray basting adventure. I decided it would be the perfect day to try my hand at spray basting. Aside from the fact that I had to spray baste outside in the vehemently uncooperative wind due to dogs inside and no easily cleanable/large enough surfaces, it was pleasant. Here are a few photos showing the process.

 It is not the spray basting's fault that because of the wind, I found myself screaming curse words in my driveway and furiously stomping on duct tape and mailing tape. Yes, it was so windy I had to tape nearly the entirety of the edges with duct tape, and it was still getting pulled up. I also ran out of duct tape, and switched to mailing tape. Then I ran out of mailing tape but luckily had a new roll that is now nearly gone. I do not blame the spray basting.

So, ignoring all of the things that could obviously not be attributed to the spray basting and doing a perfect world comparison of the two, ZOMG, I LOVE SPRAY BASTING! I want to move somewhere less windy just so I can use it all the time.  But if I moved, that would mean moving away from the adorable and territorial squirrel living by my garden who spent the whole time I was outside chattering at me. Literally folks, the whole time. Chatter chatter chatter.

I still pinned around the edges, just because I'm paranoid and a creature of habit, but gosh, this was not even necessary. Quilting was such a dream with the spray basting. That could be a spurious variable because this was my first time quilting on my new Husqvarna Viking Emerald machine.

I quilted diagonal lines 2 inches apart allover the quilt. I started the first diagonal line from corner to corner, marking it by taping a piece of yarn and tracing with a pencil and ruler. 

Here are some close-ups of the quilting! Mmm, I used Moda Crackle for the backing. 

So here is the whole quilt, in all its glory. I dub thee, Man Quilt. Everyone I show it to says "ohh, my husband/son/boyfriend/etc would love that!" which tells me it truly is the perfect quilt for my engineer boyfriend. I'm too practical and not at all romantic, so I gave it to him today instead of saving it for his birthday. Did I mention it is 7 feet by 7 feet? That makes photographing difficult.

Thanks to the horrible wind, here is a photo showing how the backing coordinates with the front.

Also, the wind was so bad that the quilt was stuck to the fence which was cracking me up.

 I have been trying to wrap up a few little projects this week. I managed to finish two more of the cathedral window pincushions for my friends. This first one is for Toni.

This second one is for Rhonda.

I also finished the giant cathedral window pillow for my friend/dive buddy/yoga instructor, Salinda.

For scale, this is the pillow next to the pincushions.

Today I also finished the February block of the month basket block from the local brick and mortar quilt shop I go to. This one was much more enjoyable to make than the one from last month.

Lastly, I pulled this out of the bowels of my fabric bins. When I first started quilting, and had only made easy peasy 6" square patchwork quilts, I decided to make an eye. I didn't know what paper piecing was. I didn't know what applique was. I didn't know how to assemble a y-seam. Somehow I managed to make this, and got so frustrated that I put it away forever until now. Hopefully it will get closer to being an eye soon.