'Just Keep Quilting' on the Road to Oklahoma

The imagery from 'Finding Nemo's' Dory was my mantra yesterday as 'just keep quilting..... just keep quilting.....'!

This quilt has been quilted without a walking foot and so far so good.  There is maybe only one or two wonky places.  I'll show those to you in a later post, but today wanted to share a little of the basting technique I worked out to minimize the pucker, gathers and/or wonkiness.  The trick, to me, has been to pin and re-pin..... and pin and re-pin..... and my fingers are torn up to prove it!   But it seems to be working.  In the photo below, you can see how I've set it up this morning for a couple of long vertical seams.  The pins are pinned @4" apart in the middle of the squares.  I am stitching 1/4" from the ditch.  You can see a few pins facing horizontally, left over from yesterday, when I was stitching the shorter sides.  I go back and forth from doing a few on the long sides, to a few on the short sides, also switching from side-to-side/top-to-bottom so the quilt is filling in all over and not lop-sided.  I also grip it from underneath, with both hands holding everything taut as it feeds through the machine..... stopping when needed to 'ease' any extra fabric out from under the presser foot using my fingers.

Photo below, is from yesterday and you can see more pins..... and a little of the minor wonkiness.

This quilt has already used up a brand new spool of thread and is re-loaded with the same, photo below.  I've NEVER used an entire spool of thread on one project before, but then again, I've never quilted a quilt like this before either.  Using my daughter's basic Kenmore, and sparing more wear and tear on my (very expensive!) Bernina has also been a good idea.  The Kenmore has been a workhorse plus I was able to use inexpensive thread, of which I'd never use on my Bernina.   The thread was also a part of my decision to use this machine, because I live in a rural area with access only to the more inexpensive threads and had not purchased enough of the brands I usually use in my Bernina.  After running out of one large spool of thread already, clearly this was a good idea!  This thread was left over from my 4-H sewing club c. 2003? and has worked well in this quilt.

I am also happy my little friend is feeling better and looking more like her bright-eyed and bushy-tailed self again.  She was sick the other day, and the sun did not seem to shine quite so brightly.

Today's my younger daughter's birthday so there's a cake to bake and birthday dinner to cook....

 .....the binding for this quilt needs to be planned and prepped.... AND we're leaving the 17th... AND there's one-hundred-million-other things I need to be thinking about..... AND.....  'just keep quilting.... just keep quilting.... just keep quilting'!

BE SURE TO READ ALL THE POSTS ABOUT THIS QUILT:
*'Road to Oklahoma' - the beginning
*Assembly Line progress
*The top is done..... or is it?!
*Let the quilting begin!
*'just keep quilting.... just keep quilting....'
*Complete!
*The rest of the story