Quilting is DONE!!!!

YAY!!!  I finished the quilting on this today - FINALLY!  I had most of it done last night but this morning had to finish up a couple of small areas I had missed...but I am thrilled to say the quilting is finished.  The next few days I'll work on adding beads, a few crystals, lace, and cording.  I also need to add a hanging sleeve and label...

Absolutely nothing helps to photograph quilting like the afternoon sun!  :)  Shows off some of the sparkle in the fabric too...

I did piece the back - it is half white muslin and half mauve cotton sateen...I actually LOVE teh contrast!!!

I decided to use that vintage lace along the seam to soften it a bit...and I will add crystals to the back as well to highlight the pretty quilting...I actually like the back as much as the front ont this!!!

Part of me wishes I had used the mauve cotton sateen on the entire back.  It looks so amazing with the quilting against it.  But - I think the opportunity to use the lace will be really beautiful too.

 

I'll be working on Pamela's quilt next - she has been waiting patiently during this time off for her turn...pictures soon!  :)

Happy New Year...and The Quilt That Never Ends!

Happy New Year!  It's hard to believe that it is already 2014!  A year ago today I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of my long arm...and I could barely do a decent stipple when it first came home.  While there are still imperfections and things I will need to improve and work on, I'm really thrilled with how my "vintage charm" or "looks like a stinkin' wedding quilt" or whatever it will be called is coming along.  A sweet quilting acquaintence asked me if I was going to enter this in the local quilt show, and while I would like to, the deadline is in four days and I have a mess of beading and embelishments that will still be added to this so I just don't think I'll make the deadline.  I have dreamed since I started machine quilting of entering something in one of the MQX shows so that's what I'm hoping for.  The deadline is February 1st and I have a slew of things left to do, plus customer quilts, so - fingers crossed!  I do really want to put this out there to share and there are lots of really great shows out there looking for entrants so when it is done it will go somewhere.  LOL!  ;)

I've got only 6" at the bottom of the quilt left that as soon as I'm finished with some other priority work I'll finish up and finally be done...

Here's the center.  I literally cried over this.  LOL!  The pressure got to me a little bit and the lack of sleep too I think.  The first time I'd marked off that center square it was TERRIBLE!  It was off cneter and wobbly and just terrible.  I marked it again and stitched it out and - wheew - it turned out really pretty.  :)  The stripes are stitched...it's looking a little like a popcorn box though so I thought beads - BEADS SOLVE ALL PROBLEMS!  LOL  I thought maybe I could do something creative in there...  :)

Up close in the sun yesterday afternoon of the bottom left corner...almost there!

Today I got brave and took a shot of the back.  There is no mercy with white thread on a mauve backing.  Every hiccup shows but, at the same time, I've learned many lessons.  :)

 

So I'm very very happy, despite the years this may have taken off my life!  :)  I am already thinking about my next project...

Almost at the Half Way Point

I am almost at the half way point on this quilt - OH MY GOODNESS!!  I cannot wait to be finished.  I have half a dozen more ideas floating in my head and I have quilts coming in soon!!!  Tomorrow is our second Christmas with my Husbands family...a day of play...then after that I have to buckle down because that only gives me one more week to finish the quilting on this.

I have been getting a lot of questions about what batting or what thread I'm using.  This is Glide thread on the top and in the bobbin - the cream fabric is mainley natural muslin - meaning there are natural imperfections in the fabric.  I like the look personally - and I like even more the idea of an elegant design over what is normally thought of as an inexpensive utilitarian fabric.  I love love love Glide thread because it tends to quilt up somewhere between a very fine thread and a thicker polyester thread...it's perfect for sort of, all purpose quilting.  You can do a lot of dense quilting without a terrible amount of thread build up or you can do really simple designs and they look very elegant and fancy with Glide's bit of shine.  I wind my own bobbins and have yet to use the magna bobbins but I hear great things about them!  I also like that Glide comes off the cone really smoothly.  I have only had one cone out of the forty or more that I've purchased from them that I had to use a thread net over.  (The price is right too - and they have one all across the board price...so I pay the same for the thread as you!  I am not affiliated - just a fan!)

I am using two layers of batting - and I prefer two layers of a lower loft batting to one layer of high loft batting.  It just gives a better more fuller look in my opinion.  Dare I say I even like the look of a "faux" trapunto look with two layers of batting and dense quilting versus real machine trapunto over top another layer or two layers of batt.  Or maybe I'm just lazy and would rather quilt the crumbs out of my quilt instead of cut away batting...  LOL!  :)

The top batting is Hobbs Tuscany Wool - I have never used this brand of wool before this quilt and I have never made a quilt this size with wool, but I do like Hobbs 80/20 quite a lot and they are very consistent so I thought it would be a good wool to start with.  I do love the fullness and the loft...but I don't like the memory retention and the sort of looseness of the batting.  When on the frame I like to poke the sides of my quilt where there is no top with pins while I am adjusting things and wool doesn't make a very good pincusion!  :)

The bottom layer is an off brand equivalent to Warm and Natural.  I have no real strong feelings about Warm and Natural either way other than to say that Warm and White tends to beard and beard bright white through my fabric so I rarely if ever use it anymore.  I honestly don't care for cotton either because I'm a machine quilter - I feel like poly and poly blends show off the quilting better and I like even more that poly batts tend to retain fold lines less.  I do however really like the look of these two batts together (wool and cotton) - though in the future to get more bang on the back I will probably layer wool with Hobbs 80/20.  Hobbs and Quilter's Dream have been my two favorite battings so far...and both are pretty economically priced.

Alright, happy sewing!  Hopefully I'll be DONE next time you hear from me!!!  :)

WIP Wednesday

I have decided to name this quilt - Vintage Charm.  I cannot keep calling it my "crap load of applique quilt" or "that one quilt with the blue birds on it", so, because I'm going for the classic, vintage, old feel...I think Vintage Charm is fitting.  I know it's getting a little bit cheese ball...I have this thing about people who take their quilts way too seriously and give them ridiculous names that nobody understands but them.  LOL!  Eyeroll.  Vintage Charm is getting a little geeky pants but at least it makes sense.  :)

I absolutely love the personality this quilt is taking on.  I haven't added much, but what I have added was time consuming.  I finished stitching down all four birds, and also the flowers and leaves in all four corners of the pink center.  Those were several hours of work because with pieces this small I prefer hand applique to machine.  Believe it or not I enjoy hand applique...it's peaceful, and kind of spiritual.  Yes, I went there and got even more cheesy.  It IS spiritual...when it's quiet...and it's just me and my cup of coffee sitting by the kitchen window and watching the snow fall.  When three kids are barreling through the house it's more like a pain in the...you get the picture.  :)

I am still going to add some sort of vining or bias tape or something along those leaves.  I have decided I just don't like the way they look just floating there, with no anchor...nothing to make it make sense.  I have toyed with the idea of cording, piping, thin bias tape...no decisions yet, but it's getting down to the wire so today or tomorrow there will need to be something there.

I also spent about six hours yesterday stitching down the crocheted lace that I had thought I would use on my stockings.  Remember those diamonds that I thought at first were brilliant...then I hated them...and now I love them again!  LOL  I have some ideas for quilting those areas...and if they turn out as lovely in real life as they are in my mind then I'll be thrilled!  LOL

I love how this is looking but I think once it's all together and the quilting begins it will really come alive.  After cleaning up my sorely neglected house after a day of sewing yesterday, I have designed a few applique overlays that will set over the lace and tie in the brown from the Celtic knots.  I can't wait!  I want this to be loaded on the frame and in the quilting stage by next week...this weekend even.  Time is dwindling and quilts will be rolling back in soon - I need to get busy!

One last thing I thought I would share...the Husband and I ordered my Christmas gift a few days ago and I get to know about it early because I'm paying for a good portion of it!  LOL  His gift to me was a good hunk of the down payment on a Juki TL - 2010Q....eeeeeeeeeep!!!  I'm so excited!!!  This is the slightly  newer version of the TL-98 that some of my quilting super heroes use...like Sharon Schamber and Cindy Needham to name a few off the top of my head.  It sews almost double the speed of my Brother and it's an all metal straight stitching machine...with no computer...and I'm super super psyched about it!!!  It can be framed later which I'm planning on doing, and if I take care of it, it should out live me.  Woooooohooo!!  I cannot open it until Christmas but as soon as I do I'll do some comparisons of it with my other machines and maybe some videos on how it sews.  I'm beyond thrilled!!