Rivetting!

I decided to try and finish off the denim quilt before starting on anything new so I trimmed and blocked it, made binding, a label embroidered onto a jeans pocket and a hanging sleeve. There were several jeans pockets left over from making the blocks so I was able to have a practice run using the Bernina 710 alphabet and some thick yellow thread. 

It is a very heavy quilt to deal with so I shifted my sewing machine table to join up with the big table, supporting the weight while the binding was being sewn onto the front side of the quilt. I find sewing binding onto the back by hand very tedious but it is necessary if considering entering a show.

I abandoned the idea of highlighting one or two words with yellow thread. It would have been very difficult to make a neat job on such a bulky quilt and I reckon it will be more fun to search for all of the words without any clues. 

A test-run of hammering in a rivet was pretty easy so I hoped that adding rivets to all of the block corners would be a quick job. Let’s just say it was a good job that I ordered far more rivets than I needed because quite a lot of them failed. I decided that it was better if I hammered the seam flat first then poked a hole with an awl. Some of the rivet tacks were a tad shorter than others so they were hopeless, simply getting squashed. I broke a couple of finger nails trying to extract the reject rivets (should have used pliers). I even made a sizeable hole in the quilt where one rivet not only failed but also cut right through so I patched it with denim and ordered some larger jeans buttons to deal with such disaster areas. Bumble was not impressed by all of the banging and swearing. That job is yet to be finished as I am waiting for more rivets and buttons to arrive from Ebay.

The middle of the week proved to be lucky - BzB was awarded 3rd place at Road to California, Fergus was offered an audition for Music College and Freya passed her driving test!!!

One of Freya’s first trips in the car as a driver was to go and collect 3 ex-battery hens that she had decided to rescue. The hens are 18 months old when “retired” and are either adopted by a charity or slaughtered. They are in a dreadful state - almost bald with no idea how to drink or forage. Sadly, one died overnight but the other 2 have lasted 24 hours with the help of encouragement, a hot water bottle, porridge and fleece jumpers that I made for them. If we can keep them hydrated and warm over the next few days they stand a chance of a far better life…

Just when I was on the point of caving in to supply-teaching offers, the first customer quilt of the year came in. I had to piece together some small, embroidered squares and add  spotty fabrics until it was big enough to become a cot quilt, hopefully without having to purchase much additional fabric. It is now ready to quilt and another 2 customer quilts are on their way so I should be able to stay out of school for a wee bit longer;)