Monkey Progress Too!

After nearly three years of making quilts, I'm finally to a point where I feel more or less comfortable making tops. There are still a lot of things I haven't tried yet, and things that still challenge me, but for the most part, things come together as I hope. Quilt backs on the other hand, still more or less elude me. I have tried whole fabric backs, scrappy backs, even sheets and fleece as backs. And while the results have been very mixed, I still feel like the ability to make a great back is still hanging out of reach.

Last week, I spent several hours looking through blogs, Pinterest, even Google searching for ideas for quilt backs - and while I came up with a lot of ideas I'd like to try in the future, I didn't find anything that felt right for the Monkey Whack quilt I started this winter.

After rolling out all of my scraps of minky and other texture fabrics to check for anyway to cobble together a back, I more or less stumbled into finding a piece of fabric that just fit. The remaining piece of the yellow, monkey portrait fabric was just about perfectly sized. (See the outside two centers in the second row.) After basting everything together, I have a 2 inch wide strip left over. It's not as cute as any of the things I bookmarked and pinned, but it was easy - and free - and by this point, those both are the key words.

Since this was a fairly small quilt, I tried a new method of basting. Instead of clearing out the living room furniture and spending a few minutes crawling around, I cleared off my sewing table and spent a few minutes layering my 'sandwich' over the top of it. I did worry that the pins would scratch the surface (even though I'll be the first to admit the surface would benefit from some refinishing), but I checked after I had finished basting and I couldn't see a single scratch mark. I did have to go back and repin in a couple places - probably because I'd been so worried about scratching the wood - but overall it worked well and was an easy alternative.

In my dreams of the future - should we ever move to a bigger place or find a way to have less furniture in the house - I'd love to have a higher surface to work on (even four inches would have a big impact on how my back feels after spending time basting or using the rotary cutter), as well as something I really won't care about scratching up.

Now I'm just waiting for a little quilting inspiration to hit. At the moment, my machine's feed dogs are still not happy, so automatic stitches aren't going to be a good choice. That limits me to more or less straight lines. Maybe I'd feel differently if I could do something wanderingly organic, but I still struggle with the idea of putting straight lines over creatures in this kind of print... which kind of limits me to stitch in the ditch or something similar... hmm...