Almost There!! Comic Strip Quilt Update....

I've made some more progress, and I just have to show it off!

Over this past week, I got all the pairs of comics joined into one section for the Comic Strip Quilt, then got all three sections (black on the left, comics in the middle, white on the right) joined into one quilt top. Wow. So much work!!

Then I pieced together an insanely long strip of 2.5" wide grays and blacks, of varying lengths, until I had more than enough to become the inner and outer borders for the quilt top. I separated the blacks from the grays, but did no other planning than that. Then I just picked up one gray strip, grabbed a black strip from the other pile, joined them diagonally, and just kept repeating that black, gray, black, gray until I had all the strips joined and one massively long strip.

To make the borders, then, I measured across in three places in each direction to come up with the length I needed, then marked that length off on the floor, unrolled my strip of black & gray scrappiness, and cut to length. Two of each length, one for each side of the quilt. I will do this again when I'm ready for the outer borders.

Once cut, I laid out the whole quilt top, took the two side border strips and pinned each one in place. Lots and lots of pins. Then I rolled one edge in towards the other, carried my rolled quilt and set about attaching the borders to the quilt top.  Not having a proper sewing table, I make do by draping the quilt over my shoulder....if anyone has tips for some other method that might work, let me know! This is my first time piecing such a long/large quilt by machine, so I'm still figuring out what works and what doesn't.

yes, this really is my sewing space....hopefully will shop for a table, soon.
see the lovely "shoulder drape method"? anyone have tips for better ways to do this???

close-up showing how I guide the heavy part of the quilt with my outside hand,
and use my inside hand to keep the border & quilt top raw edges lined up as best I can.
I still had to go over three spots (total, from all four sides) where one or the other had shifted and the stitches hadn't caught the bottom layer. Oops. Tips for that????

Once I had the side borders on, I repeated the process for the top & bottom inner border, sewed, then laid out the quilt again so I can measure for the pieced border which will go on next. I've got to do some additional piecing on those before I can put them on, but doesn't it look great so far?! I'm still amazed it is actually turning out like the picture...the picture I designed & drew. Crazy!!!

quilt top & inner border, ready for measuring
I love how on 3 of the 4 corners, the fabrics lined up to look like it was on purpose.
It wasn't. The fabrics that seem to turn the corner, total accident.
A happy one, but an accident just the same :) 

How do you handle large projects? Have any tips for this newbie?