Chickens and Lizards and Bindings OH MY!

Soooooo... ummm...

Remember when I said I did all my bindings on the sewing machine? Remember how I said I would never, but NEVER attempt a binding BY HAND?

Remember when I was so smug about those who would attempt it, and how I rolled my eyes and quietly called them freaks under my breath?

Ok, I might have done that last one in private.

But now I'm rolling my eyes at myself, which is just very hard to do and will give you a migraine, because here I am, me, smug bastard that I am, DOING A BINDING BY HAND!

What has the world come to?

And what's more?

I LIKE IT!

So here's the Kitchen Chicken quilt. I took pictures of it and shared it with you.

And in looking at the pictures, I was struck by the yellow chickens.

They looked a little lost.

A little disjointed.

And there's nothing sadder than a disjointed, lost chicken.

I had to give them somewhere to roost.

So when putting the binding on, I included a little flange of yellow chicken fabric.

Like piping, without the pipe.

I tried to cut all the red out of the fabric, because the Metro Market fabric with the yellow background has red and black chickens.

I missed one tiny spot, this little guy looking out from the corner.

How cute is that? Completely spontaneous, I didn't try to land him there.

But I love him.

So because I did the fancy pipeless-piping on the front, I didn't want to ruin the look by machine stitching the binding.

So there I was.

Quilt across my lap.

HAND SEWING the binding to the back.

Who woulda thunk it?

And the more I sewed, the more I loved the look.

I have no idea if I did it correctly, and it may all come out with the first tug, but I did it.

And it's cute on the back too.

And every time I took a stitch and hooked the thread with my middle finger to pull it through, it was as if my Mother was in the room, looking over my shoulder.

She would have been AMAZED.

She always commented on how she tried and tried to teach me to sew as a child, and I always resisted.

It amused her so much to be able to say:

"My daughter - the quilter!"

I think she'd be proud. I'm proud of myself!

On another note, the Sweet Baboo has been doing a lot of yard work, and scared up this little fella.

Looks like he lost his tail at some point, and grew a new one.

I think there's a lesson there about not letting things stop you.

Just get over it and keep going.

Thanks Lizard!

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