The Return of The Robot

When all else fails the easiest thing to do is start over. Except starting over in this case meant starting in the middle...and that's not exactly the easiest place to begin. The new replacement longarm arrived and with a little help from Mr. PurpleBoots I got it put back up on the frame and running. I messed around with a test piece to make sure everything was stitching properly and everything seemed to be okay. This fella seems to run a fair bit more quietly which is pleasing, but makes me think the original was doomed from the get-go.

When things went bad in June and the robot disappeared, he left me hanging in the middle of a row in the bottom quarter of that that super-special birthday quilt for my super-special buddy's big birthday; I had to take it off the frame without finishing it...which kinda made me wanna throw up. (Oddly enough I had the same feeling from all the whiskey consumed at her party!) In an attempt to make lining things up easier for myself when I eventually put this quilt back on I marked the spot on the quilt where it sat along the edge of the idler rail, snapped a picture of the design and the coordinates for the start point before I unpinned everything and put it aside.

It sat without progress for several weeks which brought me to the conclusion that it simply wasn't going to finish itself. Poop. My magic wand must have lost it's power! With some much appreciated help from Sister PurpleBoots on Thursday I picked out the half stitched row of ponies, figuring that starting at the beginning of the row would be easier than trying to line things up in the middle of a hoof. I imagined that getting that quilt back on the frame in the exact place would be an impossible task.

Yesterday I decided to bite the bullet and try to load it up and finish it. Pinned it all on, found the mark where the row was supposed to start, instructed The Robot to "move start point" and with heart-in-throat trepidation hit the start button.

The new stitches didn't exactly land where the tell tale ghost holes of the old stitches said they should have been but given the unloading and reloading situation they ain't bad! They're off about 3/16th's of an inch but that was good enough for me...I was just happy that they lined up at all!

Thankfully this new and improved Robot didn't disappoint...3 rows of flawless stitching got me to the last pony and the end of a very wild and crazy rodeo. I had just enough of the backing fabric after I trimmed things up to use for binding which frames things up nicely on the front. While I'm not exactly basking in the glow of this finish I have never been happier to finish a quilt. I just can't wait to get it washed up and finally given to my pal. It's chilly here on the coast of Nova Scotia right now despite the fact that it is supposed to be warm at the end of July and she might just find herself needing this quilt...old people get cold easily ya know!

If things weren't so soggy outside I'd have taken a better photo
 to celebrate this finish, but it's been raining for a week here!
Hopefully you can't see the dust bunnies that are hopping around.

This pattern is a crazy way to piece up wonky stars. It's from an old Fig Tree Quilts book called Quaint Quilts, printed in 2004. I used 30 fat quarters cut into 16" squares & sliced them up with just 5 cuts stacked in groups of 6 through a drawing on freezer paper. This one measures 71×84". Because of the way you cut the pieces there are no seam allowances so it took a few tries initially to get my brain to figure out how to sew them...now that I've messed around with free piecing and improv it makes sense to me.  I've made this quilt twice...super easy and fun way to use up some of those fat quarters!