The Pourpoint Commission: Getting Down To Brass Tacks

FOR REALSIES
i have been waiting so very long to use this joke

I spent some time yesterday morning wandering through the retail wonderland around the country estate looking for proper-sized embroidery frames to use for the $@&! swatch, and came up empty.  (Michaels did have a small version of the Muckin' Big Quilting Frame, but I figured the snap-on PVC bits were not going to be super-successful with the thickness of padding I have {since I didn't leave enough border around the padded center to clamp it down just on that}.)  Whereat the beloved redhead pointed out that, if all I needed was wood assembled in a square shape, we could easily get wood and nails at Home Depot and bang it together in his garage.

Today, on Blue Peter...

Well OK then.  $11 later, we had four wood bits cut to roughly 8" length; a packet of nails; a packet of sandpaper; and a bunch of, yes, brass tacks.  It wasn't quite as simple as that--the nails started to split the wood, because it's cheap-ass crap, so we had to drill the nail holes; but within about half-an-hour I had a Functional Square Thingy with the rough bits sanded down so as not to catch on the swatch (unlikely) or me (very likely).  It is not pretty and it is not even and it will win no prizes, but it was fast and cheap and sufficient for the work before me. I had a little bit of worry that I wouldn't be able to get the tacks into & out of the wood--there is a special doover that the embroidery peeps use for this purpose--but a) I have a hammer and b) this is why I bought the packet of 200 tacks.

I got it home and started futzing with it, and somewhat to my surprise, it wasn't too tricky to get the piece stretched on the frame.  For the most part, I could just push the tacks in with a reasonable amount of force, though there were a couple places where they just would not, but banging on them with the nearest rock sufficed.  I started with the tacks spaced about 1.5"-2" apart, but I was still getting some play, so there's now one tack per inch on each side.  And now, the quilting.

An hour of solid work. *sob*

Fun fact: even with the linen stretched mightily across the frame, the cotton tow is still thick and loose enough that even if you stab your needle straight through the piece, there's a lot of airspace inside for it to come out somewhere...else.  Dramatically else, in fact.  So, I'm having to stab the needle down on its marking line on the top (which is actually the bottom, never mind[1]), flip the frame over, make sure the exit point is in line on that side, pull the stitch tight, and do the same thing in reverse.  For every single stitch.  This is...not fast.  But it is working.  And, on a positive note, I am not having any problem at all getting the needle through the layers, so hooray for bowing the cotton.  And I'm getting an average of 6 stitches per inch, which is still pretty kindergarten-level as quilting goes, but meets Minimum Viable Product.

I'm not anticipating moving the work forward today much, since my dashing consort and I celebrate three years of togetherness on this day[2] and we intend to go out to the Botanic Gardens and then come home and make a full Sunday dinner in our new celebratorily-purchased Le Creuset roasting pan[3], but at current rate of progress I am tolerably confident I can still finish this in good time. If the world doesn't end Tuesday night, anyways.

Also, I bloody hate Daylight Savings; or at least, not specifically being in GMT -0400 vs -0500, but changing the clocks abruptly.  It completely messes with my internal time sense (which is why it's 8am on a bloody Sunday and I've already had coffee, apple crisp, and a full blog post) and it also makes my cycle commute a ton more dangerous.  MAKE IT STOP.

[1] I have it upside-down on the frame (i.e., lining on top) because that's where I marked the chalk lines to quilt along (in sad and uneven fashion; see previous post's footnote about marking these before you stuff the piece, you numpty).

[2] The date is actually tomorrow, but it's a work day and we're going with a bunch of people to see Doctor Strange, so.

[3] yes, we are some goddamn party animals around here