Another Finish

This one was so much faster than the last. It's quite a bit smaller and the quilting is much plainer. I just did a simple jigsaw puzzle design and then striped multicolored fabric for the binding. You can see a close up of the quilting below. Simple lines from top to bottom then side to side.

Feels good to have one less top hanging around.

More quilting Going On

After the dense quilting on the last quilt that took FOREVER, I decided to do something easy and fast for the next quilt. I was trying to figure out something clever that would fit in the hourglass shapes (tumbler blocks stacked on each other) and then came across the puzzle block quilting pattern. I didn't draw any lines so it's not perfect, but it works for me on this quilt. I just sewed all the lines the length of the quilt, and now I'm working on the crosswise lines. Simple but effective.


The backing is from Ikea; fabric I bought a couple of years ago at least. I'm actually almost done and I started yesterday. YAY.

I finished the top 4 1/2 years ago, yikes. I had no idea it had been that long. It's a pattern I downloaded (free at the time) from Elizabeth Hartman called New Wave. It can be purchased from her website now. If you're interested you can find it here.

I have no specific recipient in mind, but there are always babies, right?

I'm linking up to Blossom Heart Quilts and Freemotion by the River, go check them out.

Holy Macaroli! It's done (well almost)

It is done (except for the binding, but that will be done a bit later today). I had to get the picture while it was still light enough outside and not wet. Looks like it is going to rain in a bit. 

I ended up quilting it much more densely than I thought I would, but I like the way it looks. The border is very simply quilted, just straight lines that are right angles to each other.

Here is a close-up of the quilting of the swirly quilting and the border with the corner decoration. I don't know what color I'm going to use for the binding but I'll figure it out.

I really like it and am proud of the work I did. This is the first quilt I finished on my Bailey's Home Quilter and though the tension is a bit fiddly I know that once I have worked with it enough I'll know how to set the tension so I don't get those stinking skipped stitches.

I've linked to Judy's blog. Check out more blogs there.

How to...Meander in a Block

I thought I'd share how I am figuring out what to do to fill in the green space on the edges of the quilt. I got a book by Suzanne Earley that's no longer in print, called Meandering Magic (I found it available as an ebook if you're interested). Her premise is that you draw a large meander line, then fill in shapes around it (the magic) to quilt the whole quilt. I've used it before on whole quilts and loved it, here I did it in the blocks I was filling in. I've darkened the line I first sewed on this block so you can see what I did.

Here is the finished quilting on the same block. I think if you look closely you can see where the original line was, but not too easily. 

Almost Done

I went back to work on the 30th, so the whole schedule has changed, but I have been quilting, just in shorter bursts.

I've been doing a lot of this.

...on this.

I only have a few more sections of the light green border to quilt and I'll be done. Then I have to figure out what I'm going to do with the borders, but I don't think that will be as closely quilted. I don't know what I was thinking when I started this part, but each section is about 12 by 12 for the largest and it takes me about 30 minutes to quilt it. 

The good news is I finally figured out the skipped stitches problem...tension and I'm getting lots of quilting practice!