First Free Motion Quilt on the Longarm Machine

This is the third quilt that I quilted on my longarm machine, way back in 2010. I know it's the 3rd because I actually keep a list. Because I work full time, I was getting frustrated with my lack of accomplishment so I started a list. The list is kinda long now, but lately I've been distracted with my embroidery machine (we'll save that topic for a later blog). 

Anywho, the quilting on this was all done freehand. I had to figure out how to move from one area to the next without a lot of stops and starts. I have a big piece of plexiglass that I draw on with a dry erase marker. I can put the plexi right on top of the quilt and draw designs to see how they'll look on the quilt and to figure out how to move from each design. I put colored tape around the edges of the plexiglass so I don't slip and draw on the quilt top - that would be a bad thing :(

The quilting isn't that great, but I figure you have to start somewhere; and I get better with each one. I used yellow variegated thread and the backing fabric is black with tiny white dots, like stars.

Star Light, Star Bright

 

I recently sent it to Quilts Beyond Borders, quiltsbeyondborders.wordpress.com to find a wonderful new home. Let me know if you have any questions about the quilting.

Sneak Peek

I promised a sneak peek at the 2 quilts I'm working on for QBB, quiltsbeyondborders.wordpress.com to take the place of the twin quilts that they're auctioning at the Houston Quilt Festival.

I'm a sucker for Halloween fabrics and have quite a few focal fabrics. So what if I do long wide strips of all the accents with some eye-popping color combination skinny strips between them... ah ha!

This one's ready to go on the longarm and get quilted.

For number 2, I discovered Marianne Haak's blog: thequiltingedge.com  Her work is fantastic and she uses a technique of doing quilt as you go. She mentions Sharon Pederson's book More Reversible Quilts so I got the book and #2 is my experiment with quilt as you go in Halloween fabrics.

The purple with the green dots will be the sashing between the blocks.

 

Cool news about the twin quilts!

I sent the twin quilts to Quilts Beyond Borders, http://quiltsbeyondborders.wordpress.com/ and they asked if they could auction them to raise money for their charity.

 

 

They'll be on display at their booth at the Houston International Quilt Festival (Oct 31 - Nov 3). That's so exciting! If you're at the show, please check them out and take some time to learn about QBB.

 

I did plan on them going to kids so, of course, I'm working on 2 more quilts to take their place. Stay tuned for some sneak peeks of the works in progress.

When a jelly roll race quilt doesn't finish the race

When the jelly roll race quilt doesn't work, cut it apart and make TWO quilts.  These are the twin quilts I'm sending to QBB tomorrow. Just finished the labels this weekend.

I wanted to do something a little different when I finished the jelly roll race top (a good example is the orange, pink & black quilt at the top of my blog). see? ah, very nice. BTW a jelly roll is a roll of 2 1/2" strips from a single fabric collection so they all play well together.



 

This time I cut it in 4 big pieces and flipped them to make a giant pinwheel. Well, it looked more like a giant swastika, NOT the look I was going for. My lqs (local quilt store) quiltbaskettucson.com had the cute panels on sell from the Flirt fabric line that went with the jelly roll. So I ripped the 4 pieces apart and designed 2 different quilts. Can you find parts of the jelly roll in each quilt? Can you find the machine embroidery I added to each top? And yes, I'm having way too much fun with machine embroidery too - more on that story later. Also "how did you quilt that?" at a later date too.

My Quilt at Houston International!

The picture at the top of my blog shows two quilts that I made for the charity, Quilts Beyond Borders. The pink, orange and black quilt is for a young lady "graduating" from an orphanage in Russia. The green one with the orange ribbon will be on display at QBB's booth at the Houston International Quilt Festival and auctioned off for their charity!! I feel so honored. Here's the link showing some additional pics and info (it's the August 20, 2012 post):  http://quiltsbeyondborders.wordpress.com/2012/08/.  Check out all the links on Carla's blog that describe her cool charity. Maybe you'd like to make a quilt to bring a smile to one of "her" orphans.

Giraffe Love baby quilt for charity auction