Gifted!

No, I'm not gifted (although in elementary school I did get to go to the gifted and talented program.  That was a long time ago though).  This quilt has been gifted and is being enjoyed by my newest niece, Joy.  The quilt is much, much, much pinker than I would have chosen, but it was requested as such, and being the easy-going person that I am, I went with it.  It ended up much larger than I meant it to, but sometimes that happens when you're having fun!

I absolutely love the back, I feel like it's a bit more balanced, although still has more pink than I would have chosen...

I love her name on the back!  I'm so glad they gave her a short name with very easy letters (I'm sure that went into their decision to name her)!

I quilted small loop de loops in the negative space, and flowers in the dresden plates.  The quilting was difficult to see in the dresdens because they already had a lot going on in them, but the effect on the back is great!

 

A Clean Floor!

You know what that means...basting!!!  Because is there really any other reason for mopping the floor!?

Made in Cherry

The Made in Cherry top (that was finished when the Made in Cherry Quilt-a-long was going on, and I'm just now getting to it...) is done!  I love this quilt!  The star is made of Secret Garden by Sandi Henderson and the outer portion is Boys at Play (or something like that).  This top was quick and easy, a great instant gratification project.  The only difficult part of the whole thing was the ginormous flying geese that make up the inner point of the star.  I didn't follow the age-old adage to "measure twice, cut once."  Oops!  That meant another run to the fabric store (tough, but somebody's gotta do it) to buy additional fabric.

Here's the back to this lovely quilt.  I had been saving (okay, fine, hoarding) the red on top for absolutely no purpose.  I used some of the larger prints from the Secret Garden collection, some extra Boys at Play and some "borrowed" Verna.  Gotta love those friends that let you shop their stash!
The whole thing is at my uncle's house awaiting a long arm treatment.  I just wasn't up to quilting such a big quilt, call me lazy if you want-I deserve it!

January FMQ Challenge

When I first saw this design, I thought to myself, "When will I EVER use leaves with stems!? That just doesn't seem like something I will use in my quilting." At the end of the video though, Frances Moore shows a tree with the leaf motif quilted into it. The light bulb went on! So, after some practicing on a quilt sandwich...

I took the plunge and quilted my lovely pillow! And I couldn't be happier. I can't think of a better FMQ motif than this for this particular pillow. So, thank you Sew Cal Gal and Frances Moore-what a fantastic first tutorial!

Oops!

Well, here's hoping that Kelly of Don't Look Now doesn't decide to drop by... Okay, so that's really unlikely, but if she did, she would be horrified. In my haste to have something wonderful for the Sew Cal Gal quilt-a-long and to complete a long-time WIP, I decided to finish up my :first Day of Christmas" pillow. Apparently I was in too much of a hurry, and asked the WRONG quality assurance person (my 6 year old).

Because...the leaves are all upside down.

Let's Wiggle!

Here's my first attempt at quilting without using my BSR. I have to admit that I'm pretty proud of it! It was easier than I thought it would be, and the results turned out almost as good as if I had used my stitch regulator (better than when the BSR is having issues). The biggest problem I had was remembering that I was in control of the speed with both my hands and foot, and that they needed to move together. When my stitches started to get too small, it was hard for me to slow down my foot rather than my hands. Apparently I'm not as good at multitasking as I would like to think I am! I have to admit that I was a little disappointed that my husband couldn't tell the difference when I showed him, I was truly hoping that the BSR stitches looked a lot better-sounds silly, doesn't it?! I wanted to feel justified in buying the Bernina with the BSR rather than the machines I had been looking at with the larger throats. After stewing over it for a little while, I realized that maybe it was a good purchase, that the BSR was like training wheels for me, giving me the confidence boost I needed to try quilting my own quilts.

Learning to Quilt

So I don't really need to learn the basics, although that's where I'm going to start, I want to learn to quilt without the help of my stitch regulator. And guess what!? There just happens to be not one, but two, quilt-a-longs going on right now to help me do just that! I have ALWAYS shied away from quilting without the stitch regulator because it has done a pretty good job in the past. Well, something changed on the last quilt I did, my grandmas, because there were all sorts of issues with the quilting. Many of the issues weren't the fault of the stitch regulator, but some of them were. I was warned by a sewing machine salesman that the BSR had it's inadequacies, and one of them was quilting on red or purple fabrics. It also seems to have trouble doing any dark pinks and some light pinks. Well, it just so happens that I kind of like most of those colors. As I was quilting one of the centers of the stars (with my free motion flower), the machine kept.skipping.stitches.

(Up close quilting of the star center)

(It looked pretty cool on the other side too)

And it drove me crazy, like ready to pull out my hair crazy. And I almost threw my machine and it's highly-touted BSR right out the window! That's when I knew I needed to learn to quilt like a big girl. Without any help. So, I've joined both quilt-a-longs in an effort to learn to quilt all by myself. In a way, I'm kind of worried. The reason I bought the Bernina 440 QE was for the BSR. No other machine could offer that. Now I wish I had learned to quilt without the BSR and instead opted for a machine with a larger throat. Ahhh, there's always the next machine.
So, I'm joining The Free Motion Quilting Project and SewCalGal as they share their insights into FMQ. Here goes nothin'.