Finishing the Bookshelf Quilt

I think this is the biggest quilting project I've ever completed! My rainbow Sierpinski Triangle quilt was more challenging--all those matching points!!!--but a lot smaller. My king-sized denim log cabin quilt was bigger, but also a lot less challenging. This bookshelf quilt, with a finished size of about 65"x90", was just the perfect storm of lots of piecing, lots of picky cutting to size and lining things up nicely, and more quilting than I've ever done before on what is probably the maximum quilt size I could ever make work on my home machine.

But first, I laid out all the blocks into their nice bookshelf rows, fussed around and rearranged them and organized them just so--

--called the kid (and the cat, apparently) to come in and approve my work--

--and then sat to the side and watched with amusement as she changed the location of every. Single. Block:

I love how Jones is equally invested in the process:

When the kid was finally satisfied, I spent the evening sewing the blocks together to make their rows, and then the next day, during a brief lull in my mending group's monthly volunteer session at the public library (I sewed a button on a pair of pants, mended a hole in the armpit of a T-shirt, taught two people how to sew on their own buttons and mend their own holes, and helped bind a quilt), I laid out all the rows and got the group to help me figure out how wide the bookshelf sashing should be:

It turns out, as we discovered by walking around the library with our sewing rulers and measuring the shelves, that the average bookshelf is about 1.5" wide. So that's what my shelves will be, too!

I had kind of thought that I'd make the outer edges of the bookshelf wider than the shelves, but honestly, they looked pretty much fine the same width, and if I stopped thinking about it and left them alone I could then immediately move onto this step:

Laying out a quilt is the only time that I miss my grody old disgusting previous family room floor, which was so old and beaten up that I had no problem laying out quilt dimensions in masking tape directly on the floor... and then leaving it like that for several years. It was SO handy to have a sizing template right there waiting for me! I sewed SO many quilts that way!

My floors are much cuter now, but it's definitely an additional challenge to no longer be able to stick masking tape all over them...

Oh, well. I got the job done regardless!

Ignore how one of the quilt edges is completely misaligned in that above photo. Binding hides all crimes!

At this point I think I got summit fever, because the next SEVERAL hours are a blur. I know I crawled around on the floor for quite a while trimming and pinning, etc. As soon as I picked up the entire quilt sandwich I realized that there was no way it would fit in my sewing space in the study, so I cleaned off the family room table and moved my sewing machine there. And then I realized the quilt wouldn't really fit on that table, either, so I got my partner to not only move the giant table from my studio to the family room, as well, but also go out to the garage and bring in another folding table to add to my setup.

I set up my laptop with Chicago Med streaming episode after episode, and there I hunched like a goblin for untold hours. It got so that whenever anyone walked by I would, without even looking up from my sewing, rant at them about the latest plot developments and my own opinions about such, something along the lines of, "I know doctor/patient confidentiality is A Thing, but OMG if Dr. Charles doesn't tell Sarah that her father is a serial killer right this minute I'm going to serial kill him myself," or, "Sure, Will has been through all that trauma from accidentally getting involved with the mob and then having to be an FBI informant and the mob guys almost killed him and he had to go into Witness Protection on their wedding day, but HE HAS GOT TO STOP LYING TO NATALIE ABOUT EVERY DAMN THING! I swear to god if he doesn't tell her about that gun and her toddler finds it and shoots himself I will be so mad!" 

Sorry if that's spoilers, but it's from, like, way back in Season 4, so it's practically a historical document at this point.

Somewhere inside that Chicago Med fever dream, I decided to quilt the shelves stitch in the ditch, then also stitch in the ditch between every couple of books within each shelf.

This is the quilt spread across two entire tables:

I was sort of wedged in between one table and my real-life bookshelf, so every time it slipped off the tables I'd have to whimper at a passing family member to reset it for me. They'd do it, ask if maybe I didn't want to take a little break, I'd tell them I'd welcome death first and then monologue about how boring Connor's every interaction with Dr. Bekker is and I hate all his B plots and I wish he'd just gone to the Mayo Clinic like he said he would a hybrid OR is a stupid idea anyway, and they'd back away slowly until I got distracted by my bobbin running out of thread and they could escape.

You're going to be shocked, but after eight hours of sewing while wedged between a table and a bookshelf, hunched over like a goblin and constantly muscling 15 pounds of fabric, I woke up the next morning with my back absolutely killing me. 

But wait until you see what I had to show for it!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to random little towns, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!