Oops!

Yesterday I spent all day working on the Super Mario quilt again. I think I need between 12-15 more hours to have the whole thing completely done! That is so exciting considering it's been a WiP for about 9 months!

Here's a pic my lovely husband took of me while I was wresting with shifting the quilt. Sorry my eyes look possessed and it's so blurry, but I'm quilting in action with no time to stop for the camera! Stitching in the ditch around all of my characters took a really, really long time. The "Angry Sun" took the longest since it has the most outlying parts. I think I spent an hour just on that one alone. With the quilt being so heavy, it is really hard to move it easily. I've definitely put my little Janome to the test with this quilt!

The fun thing yesterday was that I also started stippling in the blue background part of the quilt. I've never really stippled before, but it is so much fun and I love it! I did some practice squares at the quilt retreat I went to earlier this year, but my stippling wasn't very good. I did some more practice yesterday, and liked what I was doing, so I braved it and went all out on the quilt. I am soooo happy with how it is turning out. I've got about 1/2 of the top stippled and it will probably take another 2 hours to finish the rest. From there it's smooth sailing to the end (I hope)!

Unfortunately, I ran into a little snag yesterday... Just as I was nearing quitting time for the night my left pointer finger got nabbed by the needle! (I've never done that before, so I guess I can cross that life experience off the list!) I was fortunate that it didn't go through the bone and just went through the tip of the finger. It did go through the finger nail, which was not pleasant, but I'll survive. I even got my husband to help me put on a band aid. :) Want to know the best part? I had to go right back to quilting because I wasn't in a good place to stop yet! After checking to make sure I hadn't bled all over the quilt, (phew!) I had about 5 more minutes of stippling before I could call it quits. My finger was howling the whole time, but it's doing better. It's just a little sore now, but I guess this is going to make practicing for my violin lesson on Tuesday a little harder... Oops!

Happy crafting!

Super Mario Quilt Top 1/2 Done!

Well... I would have gotten it over half way done, but I got distracted by this bright, shiny, new sewing machine! My husband bought me an early birthday present of a new Janome HD1000 sewing machine and I'm in love with it! I played around with the tension and dropping the feed dogs (something I've never been able to do on a machine before) for a couple hours and then got to sewing the Shy Guy character square.

Unfortunately the Shy Guy is still only 1/2 done, but I'll be able to finish it up this weekend. Otherwise, I've got 12 full character squares out of 24 completed! It's been very slow going, but now that I have my new machine I'm going to be sewing non-stop! I can't believe how smooth it runs! And, having the new machine is going to give me some accountability to keep sewing and get this quilt finished just in time for hot summer weather. :) (Maybe we'll have to blast the A/C to use it!!) Anyway, happy Friday and happy crafting!