And we're back...

Well, that was the quickest trip in a while, two of our DS argued and whined and whined and argued, so about 5km from home DH turned around and went back home. It's been very quiet since we've come home as all three have been sent to their rooms - good job DH, I might have been talked into going anyway and they would have learnt nothing from that.

Before I get to the Dino Quilt, let me quickly show you my finish from this morning. I have been searching for cheap T-Shirts lately because I can expect to wreck them in class with the screen printing - with little success (though the place where everyone gets a bargain has some in the current mailer now for $5 - can't go wrong with that, so I'll have to call in there). Lovely Suz, full of creativity and awesome ideas, suggested I should just make an apron instead, something with a bit of a twist that says 'me'. There are millions of patterns out in the www now, but on this site I came across one I liked, and here is my result:

It is quite hard to photograph yourself with your cellphone!

The 'me' bit at the top, and on the right you can see the D-rings

My pocket, using another recycled zip from an old first aid kit (I have only one more zip now!). Another smart idea from Suz who knows that I always carry heaps too much stuff around with me. It has a smaller compartment on the right, for pens etc., and the zip makes sure the things don't all come tumbling out when I take it off but can stay there nicely until the next day :-)

Things I learnt from the Dinosaurs

This sounds like it should be a poem, but I am not that way inclined! I used to enjoy watching 'Rove' on TV, at the end of the show they always had a section where every guest said something they had learnt that evening (usually very funny!), that's more the line I should be going with I suppose!

Firstly, the Dinosaur Quilt is almost completed, only half the binding to hand-stitch down and 2/3 of the gazillion of thread ends to bury inside (hear, hear!) the quilt.

Things I learnt (the hard way...):

• When you buy cheap wool batting, it can be irregular in thickness
• When you use a double layer of wool batting to compensate for the irregularity, your quilt will get a) heavier, b) harder to quilt and c) your trapunto will be no different to non-trapunto bits.
• When you read on the web that for trapunto applique you should do an inside-out kind-of method with stabiliser, they do have a reason for it as otherwise your white (!) batting shows on the edges of your black (!) satin-stitch.
• For some reason the binding of this particular quilt would not machine stitch down properly. 2h later, most of it spent with the seam ripper in hand, I decided to hand stitch it down after all...
• Cotton thread is quite expensive (I have used almost only cotton for this quilt and I like it :-))

Things I learnt and enjoyed:

• Two layers of wool batting nicely fluff up your quilt and should make it very warm
• Two layers of wool batting help make designs come out trapunto even when you have no additional layer of batting under it.
• Leah Day's advice on free motion quilting has shown me that my meandering is not bad, and in this quilt I have been able to stick with a slightly larger (than usual for me) distance between my stitching.
• Even without major pre-planning, I can choose quilting patterns / styles and combine different ones, and the result is something I enjoy looking at.
• When attaching binding by hand, Size 10 quilting needle make the process a lot quicker than the ordinary needles I usually use.

So what did it turn out like in the end?

Stippling / meandering under way - my husband had a week of night shifts, so I went quilting when he went to  work :-)

(Don't zoom in, it's out of focus and you can see the teddy bear fluff on the carpet!) 73 7/8 x 39 1/2' finished  size - I never understood until now how people created quilts with such crooked numbers! Looks quite skinny but is meant to go on top of a raised bed with sides and rails, I have tried it on there and it looks fine.

Around the head of the T Rex you can see the white fluff from the trapunto batting - maybe I should just call it a 'halo' lol

Here you can see parts of the panel; I deliberately kept the quilting there to a minimum, I like the puffy look. There is some warping, will have to see if it comes out after a while or a wash

Doesn't he look scary (not sure why it's a he)! After the curves from the meandering on the straight log cabins, I decided for straight lines on the border fabric with it's coloured circles

Grrrr, I'll eat you!

And here a look at the quilting from the back (probably lots of fluff on there, but again, don't zoom it, one day I'll invest in a decent camera so it's not out of focus!). There are a few puckers around the edges which annoy me but I couldn't be bothered taken them out - DS won't mind either way. I could have satin-stitched the dinos through all layers, but my machine is not very reliable on zig-zag stitch anyway, so I just free-motion outlined them.

I guess I'll go hunting for some more teddy bear patterns now!