Change Of Plans....

So a light bulb went off above my head the other day.....it started as a dull flicker....a little glowing shimmer in the distance.....and when it came on full blast I said to myself "Holy Shih Tzu......I don't HAVE to hand quilt all the beaks and feet onto my Hooterville Quilt!"  It was like I had forgotten there were any other options.  My original plan had been to do the whole quilt by hand so my mind completely forgot about the fact that I have this thing called a sewing machine and it does this thing called the Blanket Stitch.  

I normally do my applique by hand so a few test beaks and feet were a must.  But after about 10 minutes I had figured out how to navigate all those silly little curves and points and I feel like I'm flying through these at warp speed.....well....it's warp speed when you compare it to the speed of hand quilting.  Now I understand why so many people do their applique by machine instead of by hand!

And of course my beaks and feet fall under my "It's Kind Of Like A Monet" quilting style.  It looks great from far away....but up close it's a big ol' mess.  When I take this in to be quilted and they see my blanket stitching they're probably going to say "you know.....we do offer classes on how to do this!"  But I'm happy with it and that's all that matters, right?!

And then this lead me to another thought....I'm drooling over the Baltimore Autumn Quilt Pattern.....And I really, really, REALLY want to make one.....but I've got to admit I was a little intimidated by this quilt at first.  (Should the quilt shop owner admit that she was intimidated by a quilt pattern?).  But hmmmm.....if I do this quilt by the good ol' fusible web and machine applique method it's not nearly as intimidating as trying to do this whole thing by a turned edge method.  And I might actually get it done this decade if I do it by machine!  Soooo.....I'm thinking this really needs to go on my "Must Make" list....

Don't I owe it to the autumn loving Ohio girl in me who now lives in Florida to bring a little bit of real autumn flavor to the south?  I think I do!

It's time to get back to my warp speed sewing machine now.  Poor Betsy has no idea what's she's in for once Baltimore Autumn heads her way!

Happy Sewing,
Jenny

P.S.  My sewing machine is named Betsy.  Doesn't everyone name their sewing machine?