May 10, 2012

What's on the Long Arm

I've made some changes regarding machine quilting. Sort of a late new year's resolution. (can you believe it's May already!) First, I'm no longer quilting for Quilts of Valor. At least for the next few months.   I have three more donation quilts to complete for the Martha Quilts and then I'm taking a break from doing those as well.  I have one quilt to complete for a friend, and then I'm not quilting for anyone except ---Me!

Last month I cleaned and sorted what I thought were UFO's in my my sewing room. I thought all those rubbermaid boxes had unfinished quilts in them it had been so long since I peeked inside one! Actually, only a few had cut and partially pieced projects. The rest were filled with fabrics, thread and pattern. All ready to be cut. I tend to do that with projects. Collect everything and stuff it in a container.  So maybe they should be called "semi-UFO's".

I finished one of two pretty quilts my quilting buddy, Christy, wanted completed. I used the "Cosmos" Circle Lord template. I love this floral design, especially on quilts with large open blocks like this one Christy pieced.

Yesterday I played around with the free motion foot and some colors of Mettler Poly thread quilting veins in the leaves on a table runner I had planned to finish for our daughter months ago. I had never sat and machine quilted with my Pfaff Quilt Expression machine before. In fact I'm a bit rusty with sitting and machine quilting period, but I didn't want to change thread colors often for the leaves on the long arm and this worked out much better. It was a lot of fun playing! The Pfaff free motioned great! Whatever mistakes there are, it's certainly not the machines fault!
Today I loaded the table runner it onto the long arm.
And while it seems like a smaller quilting project than I normally do, this is going to take some time. The quilting I want to do is a small swirling fill and I've reduced the stitches per inch up to 12 from my regular 10 spi.  I'm loving working on some of my own projects.

6 comments:

Ardelle said...

Wow! Love how those leaves just pop!

Ardelle said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
colleencl said...

Angie -- I love your quilting on this quilt ... looks wonderful! Good for you for working on your own projects ... I've been trying to figure out how to do more of that myself!

Purple Pam said...

You need time to work on your own projects for a while. Good for you for recognizing that fact. I am sure you will be volunteering your time again before too long.

Those leaves look like they are going to float right off of that quilt. Wow!

The Cosmos pattern is a neat one.

Eileen S said...

As hard as it is, sometimes we just need to learn to say no. We all know the need is strong, but so is the need to do something for ourselves, or just catch up! ....even for a little while. Good for you!
Have a great Mother's Day weekend!

Lory (Loryquilt) said...

I found your blog because I was looking for opinions on your new sewing machine pfaff performance. I really like your quilts and quilting. I hope that you will do a post to say if you are satisfied with your new sewing machine (I'd love to buy it and I'd like to know your opinion) Hello from italy