it is finished

ok maybe a little melodramatic using jesus' last words to describe what it feels like to complete my first quilt project in just two days, but i am pretty freaking excited. gather round and let me tell you a tale (hang in there through the craft-narrative, or feel free to skip down to the ***) as old as last night's episode of the office (13 hours...trannyclaus, yes!).

on wednesday i went and bought the "batting" ($1.31 in the scrap bin) to put in between layers of fabric to make the stocking soft and thick. i also bought "muslin" cloth ($1.49 for a yard) to use as lining. i was intending to make the back the same quilted pattern as the front but i got so giddily frantic as i neared completion that i went lazy and made the back muslin too.

being too excited to do things correctly was the theme of this stocking. as things came together on wednesday i was singleminded in my determination to finish. so some things fell by the wayside in my haste and blind focus. such as only making one seam allowance on the quilt cutout pattern instead of two (one for lining it and then one for putting the lined front and back pieces together) so the finished product is smaller than the template of my stocking that i used.

the pieces (minus muslin). the quilt fabric, batting (padding), and the template of my stocking. one pale stockingless foot free of charge.

another thing i failed to realize was that i had been using the same white spool of thread since the inception of this great sewing adventure and it was running out. after i sewed the batting and the lining of the front together i decided to not just leave it as a plain sandwich, but to run some extra lines over the whole she-bang to add texture (this is done with swirlies on real fancy quilts) and to compress the padding.

this made me run out of thread way fast. so i had to use a tiny ghetto travel sewing kit spool of off-white that broke every 3 inches to finish the back layer rather than wait a whole 'nother day to buy correct materials and actually do the thing right. (sewing terminology side note: this is on top of the fact that no one anywhere can figure out how to fill the bobbin automatically on this machine so every time it runs out i fill it up by winding it by hand!!! OMG, right, my sew sisters?) so the back layer has half white and half beige thread though i did plan ahead so the beige is invisible on the inside.

*** boring quilt talk part: fin. interesting part starts here***

ahhhh, if only i had paid more attention to the spool here. it was clearly running out while i was blissfully ignorant snapping the photo.

the main reason i didn't notice the spool was running out in the above pic is because i was taking a picture of the LIGHT that came on all of a sudden on the machine. i knew most sewing machines had built-in lights to help thread needles and see stitches and stuff but i had literally no idea that this one had the capability (and i have given the old girl intimate inspection). i have been sewing since day one with my camping headlamp on to illuminate things. for your edification, this is what that looks like:

that's the same headlamp i use now (thanks, cornpup) and the same face i make when i break a thread. (photo 11/12/2005: my best friend's wedding. since then: acne=out; jowls=in)

so i am stitching along and all of a sudden this light from above just comes on. i didn't hit a switch or do anything differently. but all of a sudden, hark, i can see what i am doing perfectly like never before. i believe that a tiny descendant of the messenger angel gabriel came to visit me by inhabiting my sewing machine to herald the birth of my crafty christmas miracle. here is the account as it has been passed down through the hours:

God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth East Bumbly, a town in Galilee, Georgia to a virgin ahem, chick pledged to be married to a man named Joseph Jesse, a descendant of David Bob. The virgin's ahem, chick’s name was Mary Keight. The angel went to her [sewing machine] and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored hanging in there! The Lord is with you."

Mary Keight was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary Keight, you have found favor with God. You will be with child quilt and give birth stitch to a son stocking, and you are to give him the name Jesus Stockton. He will be great passable and will be called the Son of the Most High firstborn among quilts. The Lord God will give him the throne center of his father David Jesse[‘s mantle] and he will reign hang over the house hearth of Jacob Dukes forever until Judah wants a Transformers stocking instead; his kingdom stitching will never end unravel."
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"How will this be," Mary Keight asked the angel, "since I am a virgin craft-tard?"

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The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you[r sewing machine], and the power of the Most High will overshadow illuminate you[r thread]. So the holy holey one to be born crafted will be called the Son Sewn of God. For nothing is impossible with God."

*i don't think this needs to be said since i don't have any judgemental or tight-assed readers that i know of but, this is NOT irreverent people, i love jesus and the bible and i asked my pastor [husband] if it was blasphemous to use strikethrough font on jesus' name (like how jewish folk don't write "God" they write "G-d") or to do a parody of a bible story and he said, no, it was fine. AND we're in a fight and he still said it was okay and funny. so if you were going to get huffy about it, go ahead and laugh instead because he did and he actually already had a reason to be mad at me before he ever read this...because we were arguing last night when i left to pick up a small papa john's pizza for us for dinner. on the way home i gleefully ate my 4 pieces and then maliciously devoured (aka force-fed myself) 2 of his 4 pieces just to spite him. in fact, i ate so much i later threw it all up which caused me to wake up starving at 1 am and stumble to the kitchen to mow down about 10 of his oreos and milk as a dinner replacement then go back to sleep laughing to myself about how clever i am and how i really double-showed HIM! i woke up this morning bloated with the oreo-encrusted teeth of a feudal serf and rethought my entire revenge-o-binge strategy. but don't worry, i haven't apologized or anything stupid like that. plus the anger i was feeling when i ate that stuff totally cancels out the weight watchers points that i consumed...it's in the manual: spite-eating is off the record, "if you're mad, no need to add. ..if your wrath is self-righteous the points cannot bite ya's"*

and thus it was as the angel had spaketh
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is it perfect? hell no. there are holes i had to stitch up by hand because i got erratic on the machine and the lines aren't perfectly straight and it's smaller than it should be and the outline is ragged. but hello? i just decided to quilt something last wednesday and ordered the supplies online. they arrived on monday and the whole thing was done wednesday by 9 pm! and you can totally tell what it is. and, bless me, it may even function.

with hanging loop hand-sewn on and triple reinforced for when judah is so cute that we spoil his pants off and overfill stockton
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patches BLASTED!

rather than be impressed with myself i have decided to go ahead and be unimpressed by "quilters" instead. if this crap is so easy that a moron like me can do a C minus job in less than 10 hours of work on her first try, it must not be as hard as it looks. what else are the grannies of america trying to trick me into thinking i can't do? geriatric be-yatches of the fayette county joann's craft store, consider this your warning... it's on!