Keeping Up With the Gretchens: Hand Stitching vs Bernina B990 Invisible Machine Appliqué Experiment for Stonefields Blocks

Good morning and Happy Sunday, everyone!  After my reckless but ultimately successful experiment on my Deco quilt last week (read about it in this post, which I edited and updated after coming back to the quilt and realizing that all was well after all), I decided to conduct another Mad Scientist Experiment on my Stonefields quilt project.  You may have heard of Keeping Up With the Joneses or Keeping Up With the Kardashians, but I'm all about trying to keep up with my blogging friend Gretchen who is cruising through her Stonefields quilt and leaving me behind in the dust!  Just kidding; I am delighted that Gretchen, Chris, and Hanne were all successfully cajoled into starting or resuming their Stonefields quilts (pattern by Susan Smith available here) as a very informal quilt along with me.  I know it's not a race, but I must be the slowest stitcher ever to have threaded a needle and it can be discouraging to put in so many hours and see so little progress -- especially since there are so many challenging and intense quilts that I want to make (I am thinking of YOU, Star Upon Stars, Down the Rabbit Hole, Simple Folk, and Happy Days!).  Behold my design wall with Blocks 1-12 completed.  Block 13 is another appliqué block that is prepped and ready for hand stitching in the coming days.  (This post contains affiliate links).

Completed Month One Blocks for Stonefields Quilt, One More to Go

Earlier in the week, out of mild curiosity, I timed how long it took me to stitch the 3 1/2" diameter cheddar print circle in one of my Pomegranate blocks.  Wanna take a guess?  

Hand Stitching a Pomegranate Block for Stonefields

It took one hour and seven minutes for me to stitch down that circle.  That was uninterrupted continuous stitching, not including threading the needle, trimming away the backing fabric, and not including stitching the light blue orange peel shape that I've started on in the photo.  No wonder I'm not able to keep up!  I am the snail of stitching!  

Reckless Quilting: What If I Rip My Custom Quilt Off the Frame, Dump It On the Pool Table, and Try to Put It Back On Later?

Reckless driving is driving with a "willful or wanton disregard for the safety of people or property," as defined by Florida Statute 316.192. Examples include high-speed driving, swerving, unsafe lane changes, and fleeing a law enforcement officer.  Reckless QUILTING is deciding on a whim to conduct an experiment on a quilt that you've been working on (and striving for perfection on) for nearly four years.  Friends, I admit it: I am a Reckless Quilter, guilty as charged.

When one of my longtime clients reached out to me recently to ask whether I could possibly quilt this 40" x 42" baby quilt in time for her granddaughter's birthday, I had already loaded my Deco quilt for custom quilting but I was procrastinating getting started.  I actually agreed to do this baby quilt for Carrie in order to "light a fire under my behind" and force myself to get my Deco quilt either finished, or lightly quilted from top to bottom with enough stabilization and basting to secure all three layers so I could safely zip it off my frame (my Bernina long arm frame has zippered leaders for just this purpose) and zip on another set of leaders for the baby quilt.  

Carrie's 40 x 42 Strawberries Baby Quilt

But alas -- the time came when I needed to get the baby quilt on the frame and, since I had indulged myself by doing some decorative quilting as I went along instead of sticking to boring stitch in the ditch as planned, my Deco quilt only had quilting securing the three layers for the top third of the quilt, with the quilt top, batting and backing loose for the bottom two thirds of the quilt.  What would happen if I took the quilt off the frame just the way it was, I wondered?  Would I be able to get it loaded again afterwards and complete the custom quilting without any issues?  I consulted the Internet, and the Internet had no answers for me.

HYPOTHESIS: 

If a custom quilt in progress is attached to a long arm quilting frame with zipper leaders, and if it is possible to remove and reattach a basted quilt using these zipper leaders, then I should be able to remove and reattach a partially quilted, UNbasted quilt with the zipper leaders.

So I unzipped all three leaders, carried the monster quilt-in-progress over to the pool table in the room next to my studio, and dumped it there for about four or five hours while I loaded and quilted the little baby quilt with an edge-to-edge design.

Yes, I Ripped My Deco Quilt Off the Frame and Dumped It On the Pool Table