Ruler, Ruler, On the Wall!

Ta Da!  Peg Board Ruler Wall Installed!

I am so excited about the ruler wall that my husband put up for me over the weekend!  We bought plain brown peg board from Lowe's and then Bernie painted it Sherwin Williams Antique White, the same color as my studio walls, so it would blend in.  I have all these great specialty rulers that used to live in a pile inside a cardboard box.  I couldn't remember which rulers I had, let alone find the one I was looking for quickly, and the box full of rulers was taking up space on top of a cabinet on the opposite side of my studio from the cutting table.  Now, I can see all of my rulers at once, quickly find the best one for whatever I'm cutting, and they are all within easy reach of my cutting station.  I even had room for my pattern weights. 


A Place For Everything; Everything In Its Place

It's a beautiful thing, don't you think?  I would like my sweetie to paint and install some more of this peg board in my room for storing my embroidery hoops, but I think I will need to either bribe him with cookies or wait until this basketball playoffs stuff is over.

Anders' Quilt Is Finally Quilted!

Meanwhile, Anders and I finished quilting his very first quilt today.  Hooray for Anders!  It's hard to get the quilting to show up in photos.  He quilted a grid pattern using the walking foot on my Bernina 750 QE with nylon monofilament thread in the needle and 50/3 cotton Mettler thread in the bobbin.  I marked the grid for him with chalk lines and used the special ditch quilting sole for the walking foot so it was easy for him to steer that little guide bar along the seam lines and chalk lines.  He did a fantastic job on his first quilt and his lines are very straight.

Quilted Grid, Minky Backing Side

You can see the pattern better on the backing side.  I was nervous about the Minky backing, which can be challenging to quilt with because it stretches, it's polyester rather than cotton, and the wrong side of Minky is very slick and doesn't stick to the batting the way that a cotton backing fabric would do.  When I've used it for quilt backing in the past, I spaced my quilting lines much farther apart and was disappointed by the sagging that resulted after the quilt was washed, when the cotton fabrics and batting continued to shrink and the backing turned into elephant skin.  So I prewashed Anders' fabrics in HOT water so they would preshrink as much as possible ahead of time,  I starched the quilt top heavily before layering it, basted with adhesive spray, and then pin basted as well, and we got no shifting whatsoever.  Not one single wretched pleat on the backing side where quilt lines intersected!  Anders' enthusiasm waned near the end of the quilting (can't this be ENOUGH quilting, Mom?!) so I agreed to quilt the remaining lines for him while he finished up some Chinese homework that is due tomorrow.

Monofilament Nylon Quilting Blends with Busy Print Fabric

Now I just need to square it up, trim away the excess fabric and batting, and bind it for him.  He has chosen a wide satin blanket binding, which looks great with Minky backing, but getting the top and bottom edges of satin binding to align nicely can be tricky and I don't think that's a beginner-friendly project.

What's next for Anders?  He picked out this adorable stuffed frog pattern when he was helping me shop for applique fabric, and he's planning to sew a frog from his Minky quilt backing scraps.  I haven't read the pattern instructions yet, but it should be a fun project for him, don't you think?

I'm linking up with Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.  If you have a moment, click through for a nice helping of inspiration!