Insert walking foot pun here

Remember earlier this summer when I had that minor drama about being recruited to make a memory/photo quilt for my husband's grandma's 90th birthday? And how my sister-in-law came up with the brilliant plan to have me hand make Grandma's gift that would be from my family AND hers AND my husband's and their contribution to the effort would be to pay for the materials until I informed them that it would cost roughly $300 total for the fabric and the quilting and then they were all, OH CRAP, WE CAN'T AFFORD THAT and the idea suddenly became that my mother in law would make Grandma a dress and I would make a purse and my sister-in-law would buy shoes.

Now, at this point I was tempted to make the damn quilt anyway, because what kind of a 90th birthday gift is a dress and shoes and handbag? But I am a "don't rock the in-law boat" kind of person, and I just smiled and said okay. I waited patiently for my MIL to send me swatches of the material she would be using for the dress, and they finally arrived a month or so ago.

I chose not to photograph them for you, because I respect you and want you to return here on occasion. Let me just say that on first glance it looked like chambray, but turned out to be some sort of petroleum-based fiber in a color I would describe as alien blue. Try to match that with quilting fabric.

So I carried this swatch around with me for weeks until I first came up with a fabric from JoAnn's, that feels so thin and flimsy it will probably dissolve in the wash and I made this:





But it's small and feels flimsy since it has no interfacing or anything to give it body. I've been holding onto this pattern for some time, and decided to try it out, but because it uses batting, the directions recommend using a walking foot.

So now I have a walking foot, which means I may be trying my own quilting soon (and you can bet you'll be hearing about THAT). Let me just say that this project got screwed up in every way it may be possible to screw something up, including getting the thread so tangled on the spindle that I bent my needle into a "J" before I realized it. And yet, it's not totally sucky when you look at it from a reasonable distance:



But, I'm still not happy. I mean this is the woman's 90th birthday after all, and even if she's getting a crappy gift, I still owe it to her to do my best, so I'm going to try again, though I haven't picked a pattern or new fabric yet.

And then my husband talks to his mother on the phone yesterday and tells her that I've been working hard on making just the right purse, and she says, "Oh, yeah. I'm just gonna have to buy something. I don't have time to make her anything."

And my husband, bless him, said, "Why don't you just send the money you would spend to Megan AND SHE COULD MAKE GRANDMA A QUILT."