I Should have Known

It's almost time!  Time to take another road trip.  This time to Idaho for my annual Quilt Retreat pilgrimage.

I'm going here:

Payette Lake, where I used to attend Girl Scout Camp at Camp Alice Pittenger.  Where everything is peaceful, quiet, the food is wonderful -- and my cell phone doesn't work!

I've done so well on my UFO-tober projects, I decided I had time to quilt the Mystery Quilt we made at Spring Quilting in the Pines in May:

I had the brilliant idea to quilt meanders in the off-white background, then go back and quilt a custom design in the blue blocks.

Last evening, I loaded the quilt on Meggie and quilted the meandering:

I've tried quilting all of one color thread, then re-rolling the quilt and quilting a second color thread before.  And it didn't work very well.

I forgot that trying to re-roll the quilt top while on the machine makes the batting and backing bunch up.

Not only that, it looks like the stars are going to be loose and I will get folds in the fabric when I quilt it.

I'm sure one of my long-arm pros (harrumph, ANN) would have told me that, if I'd remembered to ask!  I should have known!

Fortunately, I am using the summer-weight batting I bought at The Idaho Quilt Barn last Spring.  This batting scrunches up beautifully when washed.  So I'll go ahead and quilt the stars, then wash the quilt.  Scrunchies ccover a multitude of long-arming mistakes!

And go to bed tonight dreaming of this:

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

I have some Idaho-hostess gifts to show off -- come back Friday for Finally It's Finished!



From the desk of your