Finally--finally--the moment had arrived to quilt the layers of our creation. There was the front crazy patchwork, the organic cotton batting and the backing with the heart. This sandwich would require patience and time, and I was ready for the challenge.
Originally, I had other ideas for how to quilt the beast, but since I had never quilted before, free-motion seemed to be the logical choice. It's simple. It's quaint. And more importantly, there's lots of room for error.
Basically, free-motion quilting is one giant scribble of thread. However, I didn't realize that scribbling with different thicknesses of fabric would burn through needles. I constantly adjusted the thread tension, but I still busted needles. I busted so many, I considered wearing goggles to protect my eyes from the flying metal pieces, some as small as glitter. I busted so many, it became ridiculous. And when things became desperate, I pulled needles off my other machines. And then when things became really desperate, I rifled through my stash of vintage machine parts and found a blessed stash in an unopened packet:
I busted so many needles, I decided to keep a tally. Our quilt burned through:
20 quilting needles
5 leather needles
13 denim needles
11 universal needles
4 vintage needles
That's a lot of needles. Thankfully, many of them were donated by a man at the machine repair shop who might have felt sorry for me.
But you can't feel sorry about this:
(my feet for scale)
The front? Be patient, we're still not done...
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