First Rag Quilt Finished!

I completed my first rag quilt! Ok. Two rag quilts. They look great and I'm pretty happy. It's a gift (as are all of my quilts) for my sister-in-law, Stephanie. I made the twin of the rag quilt for my mother-in-law, Joan (her mom). The quilts are really warm and soft. I did have to wash them several times to get them to rag correctly.

The other thing I need to work on is designing more digital quilt patterns to use on the blocks. I designed some on Babylock's Palette 10 software like the one on the left quilt square below. I'm not a very artsy person, so I need to figure out how to get more creative. I also need to work with the software to figure out how to "stitch" the designs together in order to fill the entire square. On top of that, if I make the squares larger then the 7.5 inch width of my largest hoop for the Unity, an unquilted (is that a word?) area is left. That bothers the engineer in me because the squares look unfinished. You can't tell from the picture below but some of the squares aren't quilted symmetrically. That really bothers me!

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My New Favorite Toy!

I decided to try my hand at using the rulers with my Handi-quilter. I was very nervous at first. The longarm is still new to me. I've mastered loops, but need to add to my arsenal of patterns. So...I watched a YouTube video (my go to "how to" site) and decided I would stitch in the ditch using the straight side of the ruler. It is really hard to stitch a straight line on the longarm without help. How hard can it be with the help of a ruler??? It was the easiest thing to learn! I started slowly, but as I gained confidence, I got a little faster. Unfortunately, I got over confident and accidentally tried to sew straight through the ruler! Besides sewing through my fingernail, it was one of the scariest thing to happen to me! (Maybe I should have stopped and gone to bed sooner!) The machine set off a loud alarm, the needle snapped (thank goodness the thread was threaded or it would have flown off...possibly toward my face) and I had this horrible thought that I had just ...

If at first you don't succeed...

There are several old sayings I could think of in my situation. I think I can. I think I can. Or my favorite: If at first you don't succeed , try , try again ! Maybe that last part should be: Walk away and drink a glass of wine! I volunteered to quilt one of the guild's charity tops. I thought I could use it as a practice piece for the Handiquilter. Keep in mind this is only my second top I've loaded onto the rollers. Two tries to get it straight. Grrr....Then I had issues with thread breakage. Thought my friend, Tension, and I were going to have a fight. Nope. Finally decided it's a bad spool. You find those every now and then. So with one eye on the spool to make sure it didn't double over on itself as it unrolled, I tried to quilt. Well, you can see the results for yourself. Practice makes perfect! Right? Happy quilting ya'll???

Coiled fabric basket

I know. I know. I haven't posted in a while. I've been extremely busy and I haven't had the time. But I wanted to share with you a little project that I made this weekend. It took longer than I thought and my sewing machine didn't like to cooperate. But I finished it and it's really cute...more importantly, useful! I decided I needed a basket to keep all of my receipts till I file them. So I used clothesline rope and wrapped scrap fabric around it and made a basket. It's called a coiled fabric basket. There are several blogs and help online. The only tip I can suggest is to sew along the rope with a straight stitch to attach the fabric to the rope and it kind of flattens the rope, making it easier to sew. I used the largest zigzag stitch and a heavy blue jean needle. Don't forget the large blue jean needle. Or you will break needles. Trust me...I speak from experience! I even asked my husband to bring ...

It's A Cynch!

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