Pin Basting

I finally did the pin basting for my quilt. I was very nervous about this step. I mean, if I don't get everything straight, my quilt is gonna look wonky. I should have researched a little more about how to do this the right way. I am not sure if I got the back straight or not. Oh well, it is my first effort, and it will still be functional lol

I had gone to Joanns Saturday to get everything I needed for the quilt. I bought my cotton batting ( which was 50% off, YAY! ) Size 1 basting pins (thank you Vanessa for recommending the smaller pins : D ) cotton quilting thread and machine quilting needles. I was all set when I started yesterday afternoon. I had an hour and a half to get this done before I had to leave and bring Sydney and Isabella to ballet class. Plenty of time to finish since I was doing this in the middle of the living room and definitely didn't want to leave my quilt there for very long where my family and animals would just walk on it. I had Oprah on the tv, a glass of water (this involved a lot of bending and stretching, you get thristy when you work this hard ; ) LOL) Everything was going right on schedule when about halfway through pinning, I ran out of pins!!!!! I had bought a pack of a hundred, I thought for sure that would be plenty, I was wrong lol This meant that I had to leave my precious quilt on the floor while I left to bring the girls to class. I left with a strict warning that if anyone walked on my quilt, there would be serious consequences. I needed a few things from the grocery store, so figured I could stop by Walmart on my way home, get my groceries, my quilting pins and gas ($2.53 a gallon!!!!!) and be home within an hour. I really hate Walmart, for many reasons, but it is close to my house and I have always gone there for basic sewing notions when needed since Joanns and Hancocks are a good 20 minute drive from my house. Well, don't you know that Walmart was out of basting pins, as a matter of fact, their whole wall of sewing notions was pretty much empty! I guess they are phasing out their sewing section : ( Just another reason for me to hate that stupid store.



All that to say that I had to drive to Joanns, I mean I couldn't leave the quilt on the floor all night, no telling what the cats would have done to it. And I know if I would have tried to pick it up and put it back down the next day, I would have messed it all up. So, when I got back home (at 8 o'clock!) I finished basting. The kids were pretty good, it was still on the floor and taped down and there were no foot prints on it when I got home. And thank God none of the cats peed on it! They have a tendency to do that if something is left on the floor. I may have killed a cat if that had happened lol I wasn't in the best mood after all of this. Sydney took the pictures in the afternoon before I realized I didn't have enough pins. BTW, I bought a pack of 300 pins, I won't be making that mistake again : )

Here I am getting my stretching in for the day ; )


I used a knitting needle to close the pins, I need to get one of those kwik sew tools for this, but am waiting until Joanns has a 50% off sale on quilting notions. I hate paying full price for my sewing tools. It was bad enough I had to pay full price for my pins. I couldn't find my 40% off mail flyer for the life of me.


Oh and another part of my exciting day, Ava looks like she got in a boxing match. My poor baby, her big sister Sydney thought it would be fun to drag her around in a blanket across the floor really fast. Well, she lost control and sent Ava flying into the pantry door! Ava wanted us to take pictures of it, after she finished screaming for half an hour! LOL She even showed the camera where it was : ) I tell ya, it is hard being the baby in a family with 7 kids! This isn't the first time and I am sure it won't be the last time something like this happens. Oy!