Photo essay: The Saga of the Skinned-Muppet Quilt

So things have been crazy lately - lots of work, lots of trying to fit in some social life, I've taken up a belly dance class (after about a decade of no training), and I've been working on a new cross stitch design for my Etsy store. (Spoiler, it's going to be starring Grumpy Cat!)

Another reason for the radio silence is that I have finally finished up a quilt that has been sitting in my craft closet for AGES. Years and year ago, I found some really funky faux fur fabric on sale - just about a yard and a half.

I could never figure out what to do with it, but eventually settled on using it as one side of a quilt.  I found some similarly colored old t-shirts that I had planned to incorporate into some quilts, and started piecing together the patchwork.

Also, a couple years ago, I had found at a yard sale an old quilt frame. I've done 2 quilts before this project, and both ended up being bears to work with once I had the patchwork layer done and was on to quilting everything together.  The quilting frame is such a lovely invention and meant I didn't have to take over the living room floor, and I could keep everything off the carpet!

So, once I finally finished the piecing and gathered the batting, set it all out against the skinned muppet pelts, I decided that it was time to put together this ancient quilting frame. Based on some of the packaging, I'm estimating that it was originally purchased sometime in the early-to-mid 1960s.  I could be entirely wrong, and welcome corrections!

The fun piece was that there were absolutely no directions included.

So using some logical eliminations and the picture on the box. Somehow, I managed to put it together and was quite pleased with the results!

The next step was to get the quilt started on the frame and do all the quilting. Thank GOD for Netflix and the ability to have something on in the background while I worked.  As you can see, it takes up nearly our entire cluttered living room (ah the fun of living in an expensive city apartment).

It took quite a few days, and during the time that I wasn't actively working on it, I had to roll it up on the 2 long horizontal pieces of the frame so that we could actually live in our apartment. Because of the thickness of the faux fur piece, it really looked like a giant, comic Torah leaned up against the wall. And with that moment of sacrilege/blasphemy, I did have to figure out how to finish the edging. I decided to curl in both sides and finish it without additional edging materials. 

Every single stitch on this quilt is hand stitched. Every singled damned one. The piecework, the quilting, the edging, everything. My fingers are witnesses to many pricks and pains from the whole ordeal.  Fortunately, I finished.

During the process, I kept trying to figure out how large it is, but it ended up smooshing around in my mental. "Oh, it'll be small and manageable." "Oh, it's looking bigger, it could be a small bed quilt." And in some more frustrating moments "Dear God, this thing is enormous and will be the death of me!" The finished product covers the surface of a Queen size bed, so it's a fairly decent sized quilt.  This was no lap quilt.

I took a lot of making-of photos partly because I thought that I might try to sell this on Etsy, but just today, I made the decision that I would instead save it to give to friends for their upcoming wedding in June. Both are fanatical about teams with orange and red in their logos, so it works well, and they are fun, unique, and joyful people. It just fits too well.

So that's a wrap. And if I ever start talking about working with faux fur again, I need someone nearby to slap me as hard as they can. While I am so happy with how this turned out and that the recipients will absolutely love it, it was exceptionally difficult.