A Blogger's Visit

Today Brenda, from Scraps and Strings, dropped in to have a go at quilting on my mid-arm. I think she did a great job on a beautiful quilt that she made using 70s fabric from her mother's stash.


Here is the quilt, finished but not trimmed or bound.


Here is a close up of the quilting where she wrote the word LOVE. Very nice.

Merry Sunshine

I put Merry Sunshine on the big frame yesterday and today I started quilting it. I took the picture when I was about half way through the session. I have finished the orange sun and all the rays, as well as the blue of the sky. I started working on the letters but ran out of steam. Re-threading the machine for each color is a major chore on this machine. Since it runs so fast everything has to be threaded through a hole rather than a slot that you can slip the thread through. However, the quilting itself goes incredibly fast. On this one I am doing all free motion and it's fun to try all sorts of different stitches. I am also using cotton batting for the first time. It's been quilting like a dream so far.

Another one Done

I quilted another one today. I was much faster at loading this one. I had already pieced and squared up the backing so that helped. I had to sew two pieces of batting together but I felt very good about stash busting my batting. I have a lot of small pieces of batting that take up a LOT of room. I think I'll have to make some pillows or a big long bolster. Anyway, once the quilt was loaded it really didn't take long to quilt it. I only had to change bobbins once so that was a help. It is not a very big quilt, only about 5 feet square but it will be a nice lap quilt or kid's quilt. My pile of "to be quilted" is shrinking but my pile of "to be bound" is growing.
I don't know if you read Pat Sloane's blog, but even if you aren't a regular reader, pop over there and leave a comment. She knows she has over 1000 visitors a day and is trying to get 1000 comments. Talk about flushing out the lurkers! When I last checked she was only at 365. Only 365? I am stoked if I get over 20 comments!

Much Better

I finished the second quilt on the new frame and did much, much better this time. I learned that you have to spend more time loading it properly than in the actual quilting. I used the waves panto that came with the frame. At first I had a bit of trouble with the speed control but when I lowered the speed on the machine I had no more problems. I have the binding sewn on, but not hand sewn down. I used left over binding that I have been saving from other projects, perfect for a scappy quilt.