Monday, October 5, 2009

Apparently, I live in the ghetto.

This was supposed to be a triumphant post about how I finally finished my very first quilt. So here's that part...I finished my very first quilt! It's loosely based on the lap quilt in Amy Karol's Bend the Rules Sewing. I just tore strips of fabric (purchased ages ago from Reprodepot)for the top and sewed them into long strips, and combined the long strips into the quilt top. It measured about 42" by 60" when completed. I did that back in June. Then I put the top away and forgot about it. I didn't really make much of anything all summer.

This weekend, I decided to finish the darn quilt. It was hanging over my head. Luckily, the fabric that I bought was large enough to act as a back without any piecing. Go me and my over shopping. I made the quilt sandwich and then quilted via the "stich almost in the ditch" method. You know, the method you use when your seams don't line up perfectly, and you don't really care that much because you think it gives the quilt character. I made the binding. I attached the binding. A huge thanks goes to Oh Fransson's binding tutorial. Amy Karol's instructions are very overview-ish. I needed detail, because I've never done this before. This tutorial rocked. My miters are almost nice. My next quilt binding will be better because now I've done it and understand what needs to be adjusted. I also learned that I won't be making any king sized quilts ever because all that hand sewing of the binding would make me want to stab myself to death.

Quilt Top
Quilt front

Quilt Back
Quilt back

***
After I finished the quilt, I felt like reading a bit before hitting the hay. It was 10:30 on Saturday night. CPM was already in bed. I read in my living room until near midnight (finishing this set of books by Garth Nix). The entire time I heard loud voices outside of my window. I ignored them, because I assumed it was my neighbors, who keep late hours and like to hang outside.

When I went up to bed, I peaked out of my bedroom window to see that the noise was not my neighbors. It was quite a large group of teenagers congregated in front of my house. I watched them for a while to see if they were up to no good. Eventually, I just decided to go outside to ask them to move, because they were so loud that I would never be able to sleep with them hanging outside.

I went outside in my pajamas, my phone in my hand. I asked them to move. At first, they were nice and said, "okay." When I asked them to make sure to collect the two dudes who had strayed a bit apart from the group, things got ugly. One of the young women began screaming obscenities at me, and walked at me in a threatening manner. I used my phone to call 911. I told them that I was calling 911 just before doing so. The screaming continued, but the young woman's friends wisely pulled her away. I went back inside. I tried to fall asleep, but I was shaking in fear and anger.

I am still disgusted. I was told on Sunday that my neighbor came outside after I had gone in, and found two of the kids remaining, and taking a pee in the bushes across from us. Nice. This has made me hate my neighborhood, hate parents who don't provide supervision for their teens, hate teens who have no respect for anything, etc. Yes, once I was a teenager. But if an adult had asked me politely to move along, I would have gone. I never would have begun screaming curses at them.

2 comments:

  1. Pretty quilt. Ugh. Why is handsewing necessary for the binding?

    ~
    Effers.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm now having crazy thoughts like "hmmm, must make all nieces and nephews quilts for xmas." there are 10 of them altogether. i don't think so.

    ReplyDelete