Basting a Quilt

We are supposed to get a winter storm this weekend, although I don’t think it’s going to be snow as much as plummeting temperatures and wind. In preparation for being stuck inside on Saturday (so much for my plan to prune fruit trees), I got a top ready for machine quilting:

Our bedroom is big enough that if I move Vittorio’s cabinet out of the way, I can lay out a full-sized quilt for basting. I had to stand on the bed to take this picture. This is a Candy Coated scrap quilt, my go-to pattern for using up excess fabric. The backing came from Joanns during one of their big clearance sales.

Some people like to tape down the backing to stretch it out and avoid wrinkles, but I’ve found that our carpeting is “sticky” enough that I don’t need it. Once I got all the layers situated, I crawled over the quilt and put in basting pins every 4” or so, then rolled the whole thing up like a burrito for safekeeping until this weekend. I think this will be a good quilt on which to practice some new quilting designs. It’s so busy that no one will be able to see if I screw up.

I’ve got a couple more quilt tops to prep, but I need some more backing fabric. I’ll stop at Joanns this week and hit up the clearance rack.

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I sewed the handles on the Kit Supply Tote and it has been put into service. I think I’m going to work on some knit tops next. I’ve gotten hooked on The Last Stitch YouTube channel—Johanna Lundstrom lives in Sweden and is the author of the book Master the Coverstitch Machine. I have learned so much about working with knits from her book and her videos. It’s time to put theory into practice.

The husband got most of the lift assembled on Sunday—I’ll get pictures soon—but had to order some hydraulic fluid for it.

And I am still wondering where all the other transcriptionists went . . . when I logged in yesterday morning, we had over 700 minutes in the queue, with reports from the beginning of last week waiting to be done. I did 100 minutes again yesterday. We’ll see if they brought in reinforcements overnight. The husband noted that work-at-home jobs ought to be in high demand now because of the coronavirus situation, but we were all told that medical transcription was a dying industry and I think there are a lot fewer of us out there now.