What I learned from this quilt

Apologies for the sporadic posting, folks. There's a lot of life getting in the way of the blog at the moment...the snotty, sneezy kind. I'm still bunged up. It seems I'm just hopping from one chronic nose drip to the next this winter. Don't know why when in the past I'm normally I'm like an ox when it comes to bugs. Its just a matter of grinning, bearing and working with it now 'cos I don't want to saturate on the drugs.


But this weekend past was quite relaxing. I've been glued to the Live Earth telecast while hand sewing what feels like endless lengths of binding on the humungous quilt. And of course, I couldn't miss the return of Crowded House to the stage. I've been a fan since their first album came out when I was in high school aaaages ago....and boy, was I bawling?! They were better than I ever remembered!


So, getting back from my digressions - let me just say that my first large quilt is now done and dusted, with lots of lessons learnt.

1. High threadcount sheeting is hard to push a needle through. Nobody told me! There were injuries, people.
2. Squaring the blocks is highly important...thank goodness I actually listened to advice.
   
3. Those curved patches are not as easy as they look and I was dumb enough to brave them. By the time I saw the error of my ways, it was too late!
   
4. I could've used thicker batting in the sandwich. Since its been freezing here, this quilt is not warm enough. But, there's always spring.
5. Queen size quilts use a mammoth amount of fabric. Because all I had to start from was the block template I had no idea how much to initially get, so I erred on the side of spending caution. But pretty soon I was having to order more as the blocks started piling up.
6. I have renewed admiration for other quilters...and whenever I see the price tag of a quilt on sale from now on I'm not going to guffaw. It's worth every cent!
   

On to a new project! Now, what shall I do next?