I got down to the end of the border designs on the current quilt before having to stop for the day. It's a coincidence that someone asked me about the stabilizing I do on quilts. I just happen to be doing a quilt with stabilizing so I could take a picture.



When I have a very large top with wide borders on it; I will do the borders first then go back to do the center design. I stabilize the center area as I go. This technique seems to tame any friendly borders before the center area is quilted. If there is any fullness it will go to the center where I can spread it out through the quilting.


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I use this same technique of quilting the borders first when the center area is going to be a pantograph quilted. I stabilize the center area with different techniques depending on what is to be done in the center. If it's going to be a pantograph design I prefer to do a single stitch about every 6 inches across in rows about 12 inches apart. If I plan to do custom quilting in the center area then I will stitch in the ditch around the blocks. There are times when I've used pins to stabilize the center area. I have to be sure to pin horizontal so I don't stab myself as I roll the quilt.

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Last night the weather was very cold. It got cold in the house too. I kept asking myself..... if I just got this house insulated then why is it that I don't feel warm? I even turned on a small space heater and put an extra cover on my bed. This morning I realized the battery for the thermostat needed replacing.

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I know for certain I have a half dozen tripple A batteries somewhere in this house. I keep a stash of batteries for things like the smoke detectors, the clickers, the clock, the thermostat, etc. I just can't seem to locate where I stashed them. I'm sure they will be very easy to find when I don't need a battery. So today I will either take time away from my machine to catch a bus to get batteries... or.... pay three times the cost at the corner store.

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It's loosing things in my house that I had hoped to stop doing this year. My intentions were to become better organized starting way back in January. I had planned to do a little organizing each month so that by this time of year.... everything in my house would have a home and be placed in its home.

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So many life happenings and illnesses this year have kept me from doing any organizing. I never thought things would be as bad as they were for me. It's been a struggle just to keep ahead of the quilting schedule. Now it's almost January again. My one hope for the coming year is that it will be a much better year.... and that I can do the organizing at last.

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