Monday, September 9, 2013

The finished product

Here are photos of the finished jelly roll quilt.  It has been done for a while, I just kept forgetting to get photos when the time of day was right.



Hubby was holding it up but the light wasn't right so we put it over the pool fence.
 
 

 
A little closer view.
 
 
Close up of the quilting.
 
 
AND . . . a re-post of my first quilt label!
 
I got a little side-tracked over the weekend, pulled out a bunch of my stuff (because I was looking for something) so my family room looked like this -
 




I found these really cool little corrugated organizers and they fit nicely into my cube bins (they are 10 1/2 inches high)
 
So, started making sense out of the MOUNDS of fabric that I have
 


 
My goal is to go through all my fabric, organize it on these neat things, then sort by color and theme!
It will take a while but at least I have started!!
 
Now, the next project to finish had better get done this week.
More later
Keep sewing!



Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Learning to Long Arm

Back in March I took a class at Mulqueen's Sewing Center in Glendale, to learn how to use a long arm sewing machine.  Needing to go back and practice, I had set up times twice to rent the machine and each time my work got in the way and I had to cancel   :(  
It wasn't until I had my sewcation and went with my sister to Cowles Quilting and Sewing center in St. Albans, VT, that I had contact again with a long arm.  And oh boy, what a machine that one was! We got another lesson and actually used a Gammil Statler (that's a computerized machine).
Any way, once we did that, I was all jazzed up to get back to practice. On Friday, I returned to Mulqueen's, rented the machine, and quilted a quilt.

I think it came out fairly well for a first one! I used a pantograph because I thought it would be nicer to do something other than just a meander.  Here are some photos:


The quilt loaded onto the long arm table


This is the pantograph pattern I used



My first attempt at a quilt label
 
I need to explain the label.  After leaving Mulqueen's, I was really hungry. I had been at the long arm for 6 hours and not taken a break to eat, drink, or potty!  Mulqueen's is over on the west side of the valley so as I got into my car, I was trying to think of someplace between there and home where I could grab something to eat.  Of course!!! There was a Starbuck's on 43rd Ave. and Thunderbird!  As I got close, I remembered there was also a quilt shop there (wink) and of course I would just have to stop in to "The Other Quilt Shop".
I went in and the owner, Sheri, helped me choose a binding. She asked if I had my label already made and when I told her I have never put a label on any of my quilts, she started to tear up! She told me this story about a young girl who started a quilt in 1886 at the tender age of 15. It was all handpieced. Sheri had photos of the quilt, the girl who made it, and even a photograph of the notes she had made. All this to let me know that while I may think my quilt isn't worth much, someone 50 to 100 years from now may want to know.
The label doesn't have much information on it but I am not sure yet how much I want to put on a label!
I am ending now so that I can put the last stitches into the binding.  Then on to the next projects . . .