Needlework Tuesday

It's Tuesday, which means it's time to share the progress I've made on sewing projects this week.  Although I did get quite a bit done on the Christmas stocking, in a small picture it would look pretty much like last week's photo.  So, I decided to drag another work-in-progress out of the closet.  Maybe sharing it with you will get me motivated to finish it.  

Six years ago, I took a class to make a Bargello quilt.  We had a fun day cutting and piecing the entire quilt top in a day.  I'm not a professional quilter.  I'm barely a beginning quilter!  But I'm also cheap and didn't want to pay a more skilled craftsperson to quilt it for me, so I decided to do a simple machine-quilting pattern following the curves in the quilt.  I began on one of the light colored rows and stitched diagonally across each block, which hopefully you can see in the close-up shot below. 

I ran into problems, though, when I got to one of the purple rows.  The light beige thread stood out too much against the dark fabric and was distracting.  So, I found thread in that deep plum color (high dollar thread from the quilting shop, not that Wal-Mart stuff).  Then I got a job.  The quilt lay on my sewing table for months, until the dust began to build up and I packed it away for safe-keeping.   When I pulled it out several years later, the perfect plum thread was gone. Just vanished!  After that, whenever I found time to sew, I would remember that I didn't have the proper thread and move on to something else.  Of course it didn't dawn on my to go thread shopping until the next time I wanted to sew.

The thread didn't turn up in the move, so it's time to write it off and go find more purple thread.  The actual quilting will only take a couple of afternoons.  The binding fabric is already cut in strips, so attaching that is one more afternoon's work.  An evening or two of hand stitching while watching American Idol and I'll finally have my Bargello quilt.  

Now if I just remember to get thread when I go to town...



Needlework Tuesday is hosted by Heather at Books and Quilts.  Visit her blog to see what other crafters are working on this week.