Musical Angels Quilt - Update

It has been a couple of days since my last posting. I've been a little busy enjoying the beautiful sunshine. We don't get a lot of sunshine, so I like to take advantage of it when I can. I've also been working on my granddaughter Brielle's quilt.

Sometimes preparation in quiltmaking can take longer than the actual sewing. In my case, it has been taking me even longer because I am not able to spend long periods of time standing. In December, we had over 31 inches of snowfall compared to our normal up to a foot of annual snowfall. When the snow began to first fall I was trying to get one of our dogs into the house before we left to go into town to run errands and he thought I was playing. Needless to say, I was paying more attention on the dog instead of where I was walking and slipped on black ice. I knew I was in trouble when I looked back at my left foot, still in my snow boot, but facing the wrong direction. To make a long story short, I broke my ankle. Ten screws, three pins, and a plate. My orthopedic surgeon told my husband my ankle literally exploded. Folks, do not try to do this at home. I've made a lot of progress in my recovery but my ankle still swells three to four times its normal size and it is incredibly tender. I walk around the house in my slippers but am still tied to my casting boot when I venture outside the house. Usually by the end of the day my ankle is throbbing and I can barely move around.

In any case, I've been working on the borders on Brielle's musical angels quilt for the past week. The quilt will have three borders and each print requires me to measure, starch, iron, and cut to size before I can sew. I like to use a sizing and it usually takes a couple of applications to get it to the correct stiffness before I can cut it. Due to my ankle swelling I've been having to do it in shifts of less than one hour. It's unbelievable how long it takes to prep the fabric before I can cut it. But I have managed to stitch the three border prints together and I've measured the length of the quilt sides and marked them so now all I have to do is sew the borders to the quilt top and mitre the corners.

I'm still undecided on how I will quilt it. Traditionally, most nine-patch squares are quilted with an X from point to point but I'm wanting to do something more elaborate. I've considered sending it out to be professionally quilted by one of my friends, but since it is for my granddaughter, I would really like to do the quilting myself. I've always been a handquilter but I have a new toy and I'm going to start learning how to machine quilt using my Fabric Mover with stitch regulator.

When I get to that point, I'll take pictures of my progress and post them to my blog so you can see how it works.