I guess I should post something...right?

It has...after all...been almost three weeks!  What have I been doing?

I quilt and bound my son's tablerunner.  Who knew the kid had such color sense?  I definately want to make one for myself.

I also drug out a long forgotten embroidery project...Snowmen A to Zzzz.  I'm currently working TUV.

 

 

I thought I had more letters done than this...sigh.  Guess that just means I need to get crackin' on this so I can have it to display next winter.

 

And lastly, I've been teaching myself to longarm quilt.  Yeah...you heard it first here...LOL!

About three years ago, after attending several quilts shows with me, my husband began to see the potential income that could be made by quilting for other people.   So much so that he bought himself a HQ16 ProStitcher to learn how to longarm quilt.  And learn he did.  Very quickly he got pretty good at it.

But seeing as how he has a day job, the quilting machine sits idle most of the time.  And for the longest time I didn't want to have anything to do with it.  I just wasn't interested in learning how.  So I continued to have my BFF Donna quilt for me and I even gave my husband some to do.

Fast forward to a year ago...in March we moved to a new home.  And after the dust settled from the move, my husband's job got very very busy which left him with little energy or desire to quilt.

Fast forward to now...the machine hasn't been touched in the past 12 months.  And with the ever growing piles of quilt tops, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and get familiar with Mr. HQ. 

Here's Quilt #1 - a simple free motion meander...very pleased with how this turned out.

 

 

Quilt #2 - a free motion flowery thing...again very pleased with how it turned out.

 

 

 

Quilt #3 - a free motion loopy meander...could look loads better but hey it's a charity quilt.  No little kid's going to inspect it.

 

 

 

Quilt #4 - first attempt at a pantograph...YUCK...I don't think pantographs are going to be my thing.  My petals did not come out smooth and rounded and towards the end I started having trouble advancing the quilt and lining up the next row correctly...UGH.  Again this will be a charity quilt that can be cut up into 20" square premie quilts for the tops of isolettes.  The babies won't care that my rows overlapped a little.

 

 

 

Quilt #5 - Liking free motion quilting best, I signed up for a class on Craftsy - Quilting Negative Space With Angela Walters.  While I still need to work on making my shapes more round and controlled, I'm really happy with the results.  I highly recommend this class.

 

 

 

 

Quilt # 6 - More simple meadering

 

 

 

Quilt # 7 - Free motion swirls learned from the Craftsy class.

 

 



I figure with a bit more practice, I might actually get good at this. 

 

But I'll tell you something.  Right now it's hard to look at all my mistakes...too much of a perfectionist my husband says.  But he'll be proud to know that I purposely avoided ripping out stitches to teach myself to live with the imperfections and be okay with it. 

 

Well that's all for now.  Till next time...