Monday, September 17, 2012

Fastest Finish Ever! Charmed Beginnings

Less than a week and this baby is finished and ready for the show! A week and a half is a record for me!
I am a good last minute worker. Every year I seem to do this to myself...I sign up quilts for our quilt show that are not quite done. Usually they have been started when I enter them...but this one was not even started! I've done so much traveling this summer, it kept getting put on the back burner. It was a thrill to get 'er done so quickly. I felt like I was at a quilting retreat for a few days!
This is the quilt that I designed for Blackberry Primitives using 100% wool fabrics. They got to keep the original, so I needed to make one for me to keep. I used cotton and wool in my version. (The pic above is a horrid picture, but the camera batteries are dead, so iPad pic it is for today!). I used Steam A Seam 2 and did machine appliqué.
Below, you can see the wool version that Blackberry owns.

And this is how my new version looks when it was stuffed in the quilting machine. Small enough to be easy to quilt at 45" square.
This quilt is machine quilted on my Sunshine 16 longarm. It's a great little machine and I was glad to have something to quilt on! This machine fits in my room without taking over my sewing room. It was very economical in price and I'm so glad I made the decision to purchase it! You can find info about it here.



The problem I have is deciding what designs to quilt in the empty areas. I hope to make better decisions as I do more quilting. This one was challenging as there were some areas that were very empty and some that were not so empty, but still needed filling. I didn't want to do very small quilting in these areas because the charm center had not so small quilting. See where my mind goes?!? Around in circles! My goal is to get to the point where I just KNOW what each quilt needs, rather than spend days and days thinking about it! Am I alone with this? Do you have problems deciding what designs to quilt?
Take Care,

Missie



8 comments:

  1. I just love that quilt and I like your machine. I just looked it up and see that you can get it with a frame and a nice price. I want something with a frame, and a basic machine, nothing fancy and not too high, so will put it on my wish list.

    Debbie

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  2. I too struggle sometimes with what to put on a quilt and I"ve been longarming since 2005. Each quilt has it's own life and even if you get two of the same quilt, generally the quilting will be different on each one. Some things come with trial and error, ie: lots of fancy quilting on a plaid homespun border where nothing shows. Save that for the solid light areas.

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  3. That looks like a handy longarm! Thanks for the input on it. And a great little quilt to use it on. I, too, work best with deadlines.

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  4. Wow! A lot of work for a week and a half and a beautiful finish. Deadlines are good for me too.

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  5. well done, it is beautiful
    yes, I have hard time trying to decide what to quilt and where. I have a little star quilt I am thinking about right now. Don't know how I want to do the stars, so it sits.

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  6. I love both versions of your quilt. You HAVE been really busy. I so admire people who can do their own quilting. I quilt "by check". :)

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  7. Amazing progress on this quilt - and it turned out AWESOME too!

    I tend to focus all of my attention on the quilt top and usually am lost when it comes to deciding on a quilting design for the finish.

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  8. I've been looking to get a 16" machine and am really torn between the Sunshine and the HQ Sweet 16 table versions... I haven't gotten to see or use the Sunshine yet - how noisy is it? It looks like your table doesn't have those silly side pieces on it - do you just have the take it anywhere or do you have it in a table? I'm thinking of driving out to TN look at the Sunshine next week before I go to the GA Quilt Expo... How noisy is your Sunshine? I was worried it would be noisy since it looks like the motor is on the outside of the machine.

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