Quilt 17: Tutti Fruity Placemats - ready to sandwich

Back on May 10, I posted a list of projects I'd started (and sometimes finished). One of those was placemats made with the leftovers from a "throw" made up of fruit-and-veggie charm squares I bought while visiting my cousin in Florida. In that post, I showed the arrangement of the squares, but hadn't actually finished the tops.

Here they are finished and ready to sandwich:

I'm considering these 4 more-or-less a "set", as the
colours in the squares are similar in intensity. (click the photos
to view a larger image)

/

And this pair, much brighter, go together.

I want to machine quilt these on the longarm. Hm.. not sure how I'm going to accomplish that, as they are separate pieces, small bits. Next time I do placemats, I'll think about this problem and certainly come up with something better from the longarm perspective - but folks, I never dreamed when I put these together I'd actually HAVE a longarm.

Anyway... here they are. I think the black edging works well, don't you?!?!

Quilt 27: Christmas Table Runner - (2nd longarm project)

Quilt 27 was put together a while back and I mentioned it in a post last month.

I like it, but felt it would make a good 2nd project on the longarm - if I messed it up, well, it wouldn't be the end of the world. I've got a number of table runners I've started working on, so I needed to work out how to handle a smallish project on the longarm. This one is ideal.

I'm using scraps of plain muslin for the backing and scrap batting, too. Not much expense involved in this. In both the photos here (above and below), I'm "floating" the top on the batting (which has already been basted to the backing to secure it.

The edge border on this quilt is a bit problematic. The dark green fabric is a cheap calico, and it's stretching a bit, so as I baste the top down, I'm having to work the ease in to avoid bunching up. I think this is going to be something I'll get a lot of practice at - even with better calico.

Done! The photo above shows the whole thing. It didn't take long at all to do. The biggest challengewas dealing with the ease on the borders.

And here (above) is a closeup of the stitching.  I ran a straight line around the border using dark green thread, then switched to cream for the center - and there did "loop-d-loop" freemotion, as I did the purple quilt I used as my first project. At first I thought I'd stitch around the squares, but quickly found that is really not easy to do. Controlling the longarm is still a little difficult for me. I'm wondering if I need to get some kind of rulers or guides to help me do smooth straight or diagonal stitches.

So there we go - Quilt 27 ready for binding!

The Long Arm of the... longarm (Quilt 26)

At about the same time as my new longarm system arrived, we had some trouble with telephone/internet service at our home.  I cannot explain why, but Telstra, our service provider, took 5 weeks to fix it.

Well... the long(arm) and the short(arm) of the story is that, because hubby MUST have internet access for business purposes, we had to relocate as we awaited the fix. It was a long 5 weeks, let me tell you.

But finally service was restored, and I've begun waltzing with "Matilda" (my name for the long arm machine).

Oh my... big learning curve.

But I'm coming along.

I prepared a few "sacrificial" projects (ie: things that I wouldn't curl up and die over if they didn't turn out), and have been playing. The first one to go was the smallish purple log-cabin I mentioned in this post: . It's made up of very cheap jelly-roll fabric from Spotlight (which I got at clearance prices).

And here's how it went:
First, I placed the backing fabric on the machine, right side down.

 Now I pin the backing to the "leader cloth" (which in the photo above is hanging down from the upper most support bar).

OK... now see the backing pinned to the leader cloths (below) before I tighten the bars:

And (below) the backing is now loaded and positioned.  What we do now is lay the batting on top - not pinning, just "floating" it)

Batting in position (below)

Then we "float" the quilt top over the batting - and stitch it all together with a straight line, working hard to stay within the 1/4" seam allowance.

As you can see (above) I had a little trouble staying straight. ALSO - I should have extended the stitch to a basting width (which I didn't here... ah... the things we learn)....

Once I've anchored the top of the quilt by basting through the top/batting/backing on one end, I baste the sides to secure them (topic for another post, I think).

And away we go.  I practiced quite a bit to get my free motion "swirlies" right - but if you doubleclick the image below, I think you'll agree I did OK.

 

And here we are - just bout 2.5 hours later - the entire project is quilted.  Not terribly impressive, but remember this is my FIRST ATTEMPT, and I am very pleased.  It would have taken many hours to accomplish the same thing by hand.

Off the frame and ready to bind!

One down, thousands to go.... LOL

And much thanks to faithful friend Jen - who email'd me to remind me I'd not updated my blog this week as I'm supposed to.

Quilt 25: From on-point to...

Here's another of the $5.00 jellyroll quilts. I started out thinking I'd do an on-point design like below - but quickly decided against that. I like on-point designs, but this one was going to look kind-of creepy unless I did something really special with the triangular edge blocks. Well... I just lost interest in it.

So here we are - the blocks finally assembled and joined with a blue lattice. Kind of a giant "9 patch log cabin" thingo. The photo above does a better job of representing the colours - so the one below looks a little washed out. It's just what the camera was doing at the time.

As the purple jelly roll I mentioned not long ago, this isn't a serious quilting project, more of a practice one for the longarm. Only about $40 of material, so although it's not a "freebee", I haven't invested heavily in time or money. And I started this in 2012, so there's not much momentum going on here, either.

I have to admit my fondness for log cabin blocks is growing, even though what I've produced so far hasn't been much to write home about.  It's time to look into doing something with log cabins that involves a little more effort and thought.

But for now - quilt 25 is ready to sandwich - the backing is ready to go and it will be another good longarm practice project.