All done! Good night, Seattle!
Category Archives: Long Arm Machine Quilting
Almost done with Well Blankie
Here’s a couple of pix of the final borders
Finished the first row on Well Blankie
I should probably consolidate all of these into one post…maybe I’ll do that when I’m finished.
Here’s the whole row completed:
And here’s a pic of the concentric (ish) circles from the back:
Took three bobbins and about eight or so hours of quilting to do one row. I’m getting faster (and steadier) with the rulers, so maybe I’ll get a bit better time with the next row.
Getting ready to quilt Well Blankie
Though I didn’t have much time to work on it today, much progress was made on the Well Blankie project. I ironed the top and backing, and got the entire thing loaded. I decided to try floating the top, which I’ve seen my friend, Robin, do before, but have not tried myself. We’ll see how it goes! Here’s some pix of the progress made:
I still have to baste the sides, and load all my bobbins. Not sure how many to do for this one. 16? 20?
Charity Tshirt Quilt is finished
Wow this one was a labor of love. A couple weeks after I picked up the tshirts from the winner of the auction, baby T, my foster daughter arrived. She was supposed to spend a couple of days, but ended up with us until recently. She arrived at 18 months old, and celebrated her 2nd bday with us. What a handful! Also I picked up a second job (long story) and started working about 70 hours a week between the two. What a mess. So this poor quilt got back burned more often than I would have liked. But wow do I love how it turned out. I’m glad I didn’t choose to just outline the tshirt blocks and move on. There’s stippling in the blocks, and in the sashing is wonderful cinnamon roll swirls.
Exploring Videos on quilting
So I’ve been talking to my hubby and my son, and both are very much encouraging me to take my blogging to the vlogging level. To that end, I’ve developed a YouTube Channel. And a Twitch Stream. So what’s Twitch you say? (Yeah, everyone knows what YouTube is.)
Twitch.tv is a website for game streaming. But they also have a cool “Creative” channel, which is just starting to take off.
There are a couple people streaming some sewing, some crocheting, and NO ONE doing quilting. Well, Until NOW!!! That’s right, Yours Truly is the FIRST quilt topic in the Creative channel. (ETA, found someone doing lots of quilting videos, not sure why he didn’t show up in all my searches prior to making my video. But cool!!!) Interesting, huh? Will it take off? It’s hard to say. If you build it, they will come; I hope!
Link to my first YouTube Video
Yeah they are the same topic. I don’t get out much.
Teamwork! Double square star quilt!
I’m so proud of this quilt, yet I can only claim like 1/8 credit for any part of it. My boss’s wife was diagnosed with Breast Cancer, so my friend Robin and I conspired to send her a “care package.” It contained, among other things, ginger and peppermint (not together! ick!) lozenges and teas for nausea, washcloths for having a cold compress, comfy PJs, comfy slippers, chapsticks of several varieties, lotion, etc, etc. And of course a quilt because Robin is an awesome quilter and because I want to be!
Well, after broaching the idea with Robin, I get a text message that said “Do you trust me?” and then instructions for where to go spend money. Trusting Robin is EASY because she is simple the nicest, sweetest, most generous person you could imagine. I simply did as told and several days later a package arrived on my front step.
We then planned a Saturday to piece the quilt top, and Robin ambitiously thought we could finish the top in one day! In reality it took Sat, most of Sunday, and several evenings during the week. 
But by Thursday, if I recall correctly, we met back up in a conference room in my wonderful company and arranged the blocks.
Quickly we came to realize that the conference room tables were great for plotting world domination, but were not up to the task of quilt block arranging. So we moved to the floor.
We discussed how to arrange the fabrics, and I immediately jumped at the chance to do a light-to-dark arrangement. I’ve always loved these quilts, and this set of batiks was just perfect for the chance to make one of our own. Robin went along with my crazy plan and after lots of squatting and kneeling, we had the layout.
Robin’s fantastic daughter, Rachel, numbered all the post-it notes (as well as wrangled my foster daughter while I pieced with Robin!), allowing us to quickly identify the placement so that Robin could take the quilt home and finish piecing the top.
So then Robin graciously agreed to quilt the top for us, which rocked because she is not only the best quilter I know, she’s also set land-speed records at quilt completion. Did I mention she’s an AWARD winning quilter? Oh yes, there’s that. So, ARod was my pinch-hitter, what are you going to do?
She added an awesome border and then quilted it in the most beautiful manner possible:
I should have taken a picture of the basket when we were finished it, but it was so awesome. I’ve heard that the whole thing was well received, though I seriously look forward to hearing how the quilt looks once it’s washed (I love a washed quilt SO MUCH!).
Anyway this is hands down the fastest quilt I’ve ever completed, owing entirely to the fact that I didn’t actually complete it. But this is also the first Joint project I’ve ever worked on, and it was finished in about 2 weeks? Start to finish?
I couldn’t have done it without Robin.
She chose the pattern, the Double Square Star. She chose the fabric. She made this happen, and I learned so much. She was kind enough to offer advice on the mistakes I made in a gentle and encouraging manner, and then she had the audacity to not even take credit for how awesome the whole project turned out! Am I not the luckiest quilter on the planet?
Thank you, Robin and Rachel, from the bottom of my heart!
Donna
Poe Quilt is Finished!
So this was a way to kill two birds with one stone (Two Ravens with one stone???). First I needed to get some practice time on the Handi Quilter, and second, hubby asked me to make him a quilt using the luscious Nevermore fabric Collection by Micheal Miller over at Fabric.com. Being a huge Edgar Allen Poe fan, this fabric spoke to him on several levels.
My first plan was to have this finished by Halloween, but that came and went. In my defense most of 2015 was spent either sick, or renovating the house I used to rent to my daughter. 
I was lusting after some quilts by famous quilters when I chose the quilting patterns for this quilt. The border is overly complicated and completely lost on the busy background. I was warned that this fabric wouldn’t be good for quilting, but did I listen? Nope! In the middle I chose to do a “quill” pantograph, which I just kind of made up, drew on a piece of construction paper, and then referred to periodically as I went. In the corner blocks I decided to do cute little pumpkins, which you can barely see:
On the sides, I gave up the extensive geometric quilting design and instead went with a simple horizontal beadboard. I LOVE the feel of this quilting.
Here the quilting is done and binding is being pinned. By this time, the hatred I have for this quilt had grown exponentially. I just wanted it finished. 
There are so many issues with it, but at least the binding turned out sweet. I love a good mitered corner!
Above is hubby holding the quilt (sideways) before throwing it in the wash. Here are the problems with this quilt:
- The fabric design is too busy for anything other than a simple pantograph or stippling.
- The backing and the top were identical dimensions, which leads to the “phone book effect” when the quilt is rolled up on the take up pole. I compensated for this by trimming the top several inches off the bottom edge, making the top border and bottom border uneven. Really this should count as two problems! The backing should be 3 inches larger in all directions.
- The tension was off the WHOLE TIME I was quilting and I didn’t realize it because I wasn’t checking. The eyelashes on the back are TERRIBLE. I’m ashamed to look at the back. Frequently check your bobbin thread to confirm stitches look the same on the top and bottom. Use scraps on the sides to test stitches after changing bobbins.
- There are wrinkles in the backing. Apparently I didn’t load it well, or something. Take care in loading, always check for wrinkles, and learn from my mistakes!
- Don’t jump into complex quilting designs just because the experts on youtube make it look so darn easy. They practice for hours, sometimes daily (apparently they don’t work full-time outside of the house!).
- Practice! Practice! Practice! Especially loading and unloading. Because it was MONTHS since I’d done the Pinwheel quilt, I’d forgotten the process. I reviewed the HandiQuilter channel on Youtube for the basics for the next quilt. I wish I had done it with this one.
SO, in retrospect, this was meant to be a learning quilt and to that end, it was a rousing success. I learned A LOT. Mostly “what NOT to do,” but hey, that’s the story of my life (and title of my soon-to-be-written autobiography). Hopefully you learn from me airing my dirty laundry here!
On to the next disaster…err I mean Project!!!
Donna
My Daughter’s Pinwheel Quilt
I’m so excited to finally be posting about this. I actually finished this quilt awhile ago, and blogged about it briefly on my other site, SewMessy. But I really wanted to do it justice here.
I started work on it on the original HandiQuilter II frame and domestic sewing machine.
While I had used this many times before, this was the first time I had set it up on the plastic table, and I think that caused all manner of issue. The domestic machine I used was my Pfaff Hobby GrandQuilter, which is extremely heavy. This caused the table to sag in the middle, and the rails of the handquilter II to be mis-matched at the seams. Thus, when I would roll over the seams, a very distinct bump was visible in my quilting lines. It was the most frustrating experience, I assure you! I had hoped to finish Zoe’s quilt for her college graduation, but this quilting disaster kept me from not only enjoying the process, but making any headway.
In August of 2014, hubby bought me my new baby, here she is boxed up after the quilt show:
And here she is set up in the sewing palace, finally: 
The suggestion when you get a new long arm quilting machine is, of course, to put some throw away fabric on there and practice. So I did what any quilter would do…ripped Zoe’s pinwheel quilt off the HandiQuilter II frame and put it on the new HandiQuilter Avante frame:
I immediately went to town, and went a little nuts. Here I’ve pebbled over top of the feathered hearts! Whoops!
Here is a picture of Zoe’s pinwheel quilt on the machine from the front:
Here is a close up of the feathered hearts in the solid squares. I did pebbling inside the heart, and stippling outside.
Here I am pinning the binding to the quilt:
And here I am whip-stitching the binding to the backing:
The corners came out SOOOOOO good. I am tooting my own horn here, but I love it when the corners come up perfectly. It’s such a struggle to get them to do so. So I celebrate when they do!
Here it is all folded up on the arm of a comfy chair, FINISHED:
And finally a shot of the whole thing finished. 
Now, I can tell the blocks that were quilted before the Avante, and those with the Avante. I don’t know that my daughter can, though and that’s all that matters! She washed it and it is so cuddly now. It came out so amazing. To think I started this quilt FIFTEEN years earlier. Possibly longer! That’s amazing, isn’t it? We need to stick with our UFO’s and make sure they eventually get done!
Anyway – I hope I’ve done it justice here for you. I hope I’ve conveyed what a joy finishing this quilt has been, and how much I adore the new long arm! 😀
Happy Quilting!
Donna
Here’s a quick shot of my Handi Quilter Avante
This is only the second quilt I’ve done on it, and I’m already making mistakes like a pro! But that’s how you learn, Right? This is a quilt for my hubby, so he will get this “practice” quilt and all the mistakes :D.
Ok, off to bed. Stayed up too late quilting in my new sewing space (furniture rearranged).