Backing Struggles

When a back is this short on the sides, there's no way for me to even pin a temporary leader to it. This is one of those situations... 

Look at the upper left corner of the top

Once I basted everything down, I had less than a 1/4" to pin to and my machine is not going to risk possibly hitting one of those pins. I just got it retimed. 

People, please, for my sanity, give me a couple of inches on the sides. And at least four extra inches on the top/bottom of your backing. I can not tension correctly on the frame nor can I use any kind of rulers if I don't have any extra back. You're going to be stuck with edge-to-edge and I can not guarantee wrinkles and puckers won't occur on the back side since I can not tension. 

Okay...enough about that. Here's what's on the frame this morning...

Virginias painstakingly put together tiny nine patches

This top is going to be all ruler work. Notice the extra on the sides! Yay! Since there is so much to work ruler work on this it'll be on the frame at least one full day...probably two. 

I was able to sit-down quilt six blocks last night and my skills are starting to already coming back. I can see it in my backtracking and my line work. My sit-down machine and I were not getting along well to start with, but after rethreading we came to an understanding and all was well in the end.