Wednesday, September 21, 2016

A finish!!

My friend, Doreen, whom I met when I was doing my block drive for Hurricane Sandy relief, stopped by last Friday.  It was great catching up - she lives in Minnesota and I live in Virginia, so we don't see each other often, as you can imagine!

Anyway, I mentioned wanting to go ahead and machine quilt some quilts, rather than poke along with my hand quilting on everything.  Not that I'm giving up hand quilting - I love it too much to do that! - but it would be nice to have a few more finishes under my belt instead of just flimsies.  It turns out she's been teaching free motion quilting, so she gave me some pointers and a pep talk.

On Saturday, I put on my big girl panties and gave it a try.  I changed the needle, I dropped the feed dogs, I fiddled with the tension, and I doodled all over a little quilt sandwich I had made for that purpose.  I had fun, but I definitely need to do more practice before I actually use free motion quilting on a real quilt.

So, the feed dogs came back up and I gave the wavy stitch on my machine a try.

I really like the way it turned out!  And I love the fact that I had quilted a whole quilt in a matter of just hours!

Yesterday I sewed the binding onto the front and today I hand stitched it down to the back.

A finish!  This one has to be a record for me - I started this project on Labor Day, just 16 days ago!





Time to get my Charlie Brown Quilt ready for quilting, I guess.
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10 comments:

  1. The Cozy QuilterSeptember 21, 2016 at 8:12 PM

    Wow! That must be a record! Nice quilting too...

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  2. KaHollySeptember 22, 2016 at 2:54 AM

    Fun quilt! Congrats on a finish!

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  3. mebakerSeptember 22, 2016 at 4:21 AM

    Beatuiful! Love how colorful it is!

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  4. Vroomans' QuiltsSeptember 22, 2016 at 4:40 AM

    Love the color and motion in this quilt. I like to use the serpentine - I think it adds to the movement of this design. Congrats!

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  5. AnonymousSeptember 22, 2016 at 5:45 AM

    Love it. Speedy and beautiful!

    Dafi

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  6. BeckySeptember 22, 2016 at 5:46 AM

    Ooooohhhhhh! I love that wavy stitch. I need to check to see if I have that one on my machine! That would open up a whole new world of COMPLETED PROJECTS to me!! hahaha!

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  7. Cheryl's Teapots2QuiltingSeptember 22, 2016 at 5:47 AM

    I took 3 FM classes, years ago. It was boring. I keep thinking that I need to try it again. I can do some straight line quilting with the machine.

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  8. Barb HSeptember 22, 2016 at 6:47 AM

    Beautiful quilt! And machine quilting is perfect for getting those quilts finished and on their way. I think hand quilting should only be done with 10 or so of your best friends, gathered around a quilting frame with lunch simmering away on the stove (or in the crock pot). But that's just me.

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  9. MoneikSeptember 22, 2016 at 12:27 PM

    I am so proud of you for going outside your comfort zone and trying something new. The quilt is gorgeous and it is nice to have a finish. You can still continue to hand quilt, but machine quilting helps move projects to the finish stage.

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  10. Julie FukudaSeptember 22, 2016 at 11:42 PM

    For a first try, it looks down-right spectacular. Good doing!

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