Beautimus

It is done. It took all day Monday to do it and my sewing machine is now having professional maintenance work but it is done. It is so lovely.

I probably don't need to tell you how frustrating it was when what I thought was a 3-4 hour project turned into a 10 hour one. I probably don't need to tell you about how 2 year olds can sense blood, sweat, and tears because that's when they decide to come "help." Or at least demand milk, water, and whatever else they feel like they need at that instant. It was at supper when I was sitting there, staring at my hastily prepared supper and the quilt with binding half done, half not, when SuperGirl asked me "Mommy, are you tired?" I said "Yes honey, and I'm ready for that quilt to be done." "Me too, Mommy," she answered.

It took 40 minutes to wash, 3 hours to dry (cotton batting is great for absorption and resisting dryer heat), and I finally tucked it around Hubby (who was asleep) at 1 a.m. It was beautiful. the crowning achievement was the next day when I had the bed made and he came home. He looked at it and said, "It looks really good!"

It's actually a little too long but it's still fabulous because we don't have to worry about the ends riding up while sleeping. The cotton batting is not too heavy (I was worried about that and almost changed it but something told me not to) and feels wonderful. It feels so good to have it done and on my bed. I can look at it and say "I did that. I did all of that. I didn't just finish it, I did it ALL." And the flipping thing is king size. [patting self on back for not shying away from what "experts" would say isn't a "good idea"] I did, however, make an emergency call to LMSS while sewing the binding telling her about wanting to throw the thing out the window while my sewing machine tried blow up. She talked me down off the ledge and said "Whatever you need to do to get it done, do it." Thanks, LMSS.

The other thing I feel good about with this quilt is it's totally us, one of a kind, well-made, and will stay on our bed for ages. It's not trendy or synthetic. It's our colors and our feel. When I was looking for bedspreads years ago I couldn't find any in the stores that were big enough and/or the colors/patterns we wanted and we were living with a cheap substitute bedspread. I say cheap because the fabric and sewing work was cheap; it in itself was not cheap, although was for a king-size bedspread. I've been patching holes on it from the day we got it, which means 2 years, and I'm happy to fold it up in the closet and have a bedspread that I have constructed from the ground up. If anything happens to it I can fix it.

I celebrated all this by doing all the laundry and housework that has been left undone for the past 2 weeks. We also are staining and finishing bookshelves for the house which means all the books will finally be organized and in the right place, i.e. kids' books in kids' rooms, adult books, photo albums, and nice books in front room, paperbacks in our bedroom. I'm so excited but of course that means cleaning more stuff out and moving things. It's going to be great once done. And we are actually enjoying the staining and polyurethane coating procedure so it hasn't been too bad. Of course it helps the weather has been gorgeous.