Quilt Along Wednesday; My Head and My Heart

   I am Not stash busting. I'm stash building. I'm on the Denyse Schmidt band wagon. I bought these the other day at Joann's. I realize they are not the highly sought after re-released independent shop designs, but I'm an instant gratification kinda girl. Nobody sells her line in my area. I'd have to buy online. And although I love to get those special packages in the mail, I want to see it, feel it, touch it first, THEN, I buy:) Besides, I love the Joann's line just as much! There is one imposter fabric in the mix. See it? I loved it and thought it went well so I threw it in.

I LOOOOOVE prints.My head says buy solids. They look amazing quilted. My heart says buy prints. Because I love them. I went shopping the other day with the intention of buying lots of solids. I came home with one. Does anyone else do this?
   So here is what I did to get ready for the Quilt Along Wednesday.

BASTING MY QUILT:  

I used 505 spray.  I haven't tried this method yet. I will let you know what I think after I have quilted it. You say, why did you baste first? You will find out in a minute.

MARKING MY QUILT:

First, I printed Leah's pattern x 4 and carefully lined them up and stapled them together

Then, I stitched on the lines ( with and empty needle and thread ) This took a bit of time, but I got four done at once. I took a little over an hour.

I then of course taped them together and laid it out on my fabric.

Next, it was time to pounce the chalk.

I decided to use this method because my fabric was dark. Blue pens and chalk is what I had on hand. Blue would never show up, so chalk, it was. I didn't account for my little mistake though. I left overlap paper on the pattern in order to tape it easier. This is what happend.

OOPS! No biggie, I just free handed the rest in with my little chalk thinga-ma-doober with the little spinny wheel thingy on it. I should get up and look at what it's called, but I am lazy right now.

I basted first because because i used chalk to mark my quilt. I have no idea if i did this correctly, but I figured if I marked it with chalk first, it would all disappear when I smoothed my layers while basting. If my thought process is wrong, please let me know! Or, if there is an easier way, please let me know! I can't wait to quilt this sucker up!

QUESTION FOR LEAH: Where the heck did you get that big light box? Did you make it or buy it, and if you bought it, how much would one like that cost? I didn't have a need for a light box this time, but it would be nice to have in the future.

Also, how would you have marked dark fabrics? I know I didn't use any of your purposed methods, but I really wanted to try spray basting, and didn't know any other way to mark dark fabric.

Here is what I learned in this process so far. I would rather skip marking a quilt and just freeball it. I'm not saying I won't do it again. And I have marked reference lines before. But, whew, that was a lot of extra work!

Although the finished product of taking such a step will be magnificent, it is just one more step that slows me from the fun part. The quilting. ;)