For years I’ve been glue basting my quilts outside. I’d pull out the folding table outside and it was a pain. On the last quilt I made, the huge white one, I did the basting outside, but I just went back to using safety pins. It worked fine. One of the things I learned is to use monofilament and the walking foot and do a basic grid along block lines.
Remember this table? I use it all the time, but with only one leaf open.
So here’s the duh moment, open up that leaf and use this table to baste the quilt!
It works beautifully! I don’t have to schlep things outside, I don’t have to wrestle a table from the garage. Sure, this quilt isn’t all that large, but I think I’ve decided that I probably won’t be making king or queen size quilts much anymore.
Why do we get stuck in old habits and forget to look around and learn new ones?
Using the pins works just fine. I don’t place them too close together. I have all the layers stretch on the table and suddenly it isn’t an onerous task.
I probably could have worked with regular cotton thread, brown thread since I quilted along all of the lattice strips. And no, I don’t like monofilament, it broke a lot. I did get the job done. Now to figure out the rest of the quilting.
I really had to zoom in with my macro lens for you to see this.
In other news, I get to go back to Grandma and me with Einav!!!! Here she is with her friend Scarlett. They met 10 months ago, then we had that awful long hiatus. And here they are back together. During the lockdown Scarlett had some major surgery on her scalp, thank God, it all worked out, so that helmet isn’t for vanity, but for a serious issue. God Bless America, she got amazing treatment and is doing extremely well. Although it looks like each girl is eating her own snack, nope, the grabbed food from one another, it just makes my heart sing.
I hate the lockdown, I hate that kids are isolated. I really hate what it is doing to my special needs grandson. But for my six year old grandson, I’m seeing silver linings. He is meeting classmates at the park, he plays with the neighbors. And together we go on long walks. this is the second time we went to the pier. Look at that deep blue ocean, it calms my soul. So we watched the fishermen, we were surprised that the lifeguard station didn’t put out the daily information about the water temps and the tide times.
We sat together on a bench on the pier and watched the surfers and talked about what they are doing and how they are doing it. I have no doubt that one of these days Westley will be one of them. Right now he is learning to paddle board on the inner harbor and is also learning how to boogie board.
On our walk home we passed a huge mural which is part of the Hermosa Beach Murals Project. Which btw, is a good effort, they do sell posters of the murals, I’m all in favor of renewing through art.
This is not my picture, I downloaded it. This mural is being painted by Hermosa Beach resident Chris Coakley, go read his bio, fascinating.
Also, not my photograph, no way I could capture this all. Yes, I LOVE this, great art! This is Hermosa Beach in 1909. So Westley and I stopped and looked at this and admired the pier, the few old buildings and the trolly.
This got us taking about the trolly, I explained that back then, trollies ran all over southern CA. We were up on Manhattan Blvd, but one street closer to the beach is Hermosa Ave. I said to Westley: you know how Hermosa is a divided street, with a median with plants in the middle? Oh yes, they have gone to the median to get succulent cuttings. Well, at every cross street we could look down and see the median. Guess what, that is where the trolly tracks used to be!
That kind of history lesson only happens when one is out and about experiencing the world. I am so grateful I have these moments to share with my grandson. A silver lining to the awfulness of what the world is going through.
Leah