I've been bad... I know...

It's been a long time since I've posted anything.  But that's because it's been a long time since I've done any quilting.  I haven't been feeling inspired or creative for months now and it's time to break the cycle.  And I know why I feel this way.  The truck quilt is scaring the crap out of me.  This is the first time I've tried something like this and I'm afraid that it won't live up to the picture in my head.  So I guess if I don't work on it I won't fail, right......? 

So what I'm doing to get myself motivated is finish up some of my other projects to boost my confidence. 

My Oriental quilt is almost finished.  I want to show this quilt in some local shows, so I'm going to try blocking a quilt for the first time.  If you're not familiar with blocking, it's taking a wet or damp quilt and stretching and pinning it to the desired dimensions on a flat surface.  This enables the quilt to be square and hang flat.  I wasn't familiar with blocking so I watched a DVD of Karen McTavish blocking a quilt.  I tried it with the help of my husband and it was a dismal failure!  The quilt ended up not being square on the first try.  Then we tried blocking it using my husbands suggestions on how to keep the quilt square.  This caused the quilt to be stretched out larger than it's original dimensions.  This caused the appliqued tree trunk to pull away from the quilt.  I was devastated.  We pulled the pins out and I put the quilt away for a the rest of the night and drank a glass of wine.  The next day I tried again.  This time, I measured out the final dimensions and marked those dimensions on the foam boards I was using.  I started with the corners and pinned those, then the pinned the centers.  From there, I pinned each opposite side.  It worked perfectly!

It's amazing how much easier it was to trim the quilt after blocking the quilt.  It ended up sqaure and flat.  Next comes the binding.....