Finished quilt top

I was wrong. (Don't tell my better half!) The quilt top ended up being 88 inches x 96 inches, so a queen not a king. I may add another border to make it a king. It is tall enough for Matt though. That is all I really care about...that it covers him since he's pretty tall. The navy sashing and border really completed the look of the top.

I am piecing the back now. I am going to position the rest of his shirts in the center and build a border around it to the size I need. To work in the long arm, I have to make the back 5 inches larger all around. The trick will be lining it up correctly. I found a nice orange and solid navy for the back. I plan to use orange for the binding.

Almost ready for the long arm! I am pretty excited!

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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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