Finished Or Not Friday: A Whole Lot of Longarming Going On!

I'm pleased to join in this week at Quilty Girl Alycia's for Finished Or Not Friday!  

Some of these projects have been a long time coming so be warned in advance that this will be a very long post!

This past Sunday my DH and I returned from our annual winter trip to visit my MIL in North Carolina.  As always, since my MIL is also a quilter, these trips also function as a bit of a mini quilt retreat.  Even more so this year as my MIL has a new friend from her guild and also has a new "neighbor" who is a former co-worker of hers from here in NY who retired to my MIL's town last year.  I had taught both my MIL and her co-worker to quilt close to twenty years ago now and the woman still has the quilting bug big time!   So needless to say a few quilt shop excursions and a "sew together" session for the four of us happened during our week long stay.

The machines on break while we ate!

My MIL purchased a longarm during the 2023 All Carolinas Shop Hop so each time I visit it is also another chance for me to learn more about using it.  She has a Handi Quilter Moxie on an 8 ft frame with a Pro Stitcher tablet.  

This picture is from around the time she purchased it.

Each visit since she purchased it has presented a different "learning experience" (aka a need to solve problems, LOL!) for both of us.  This time, the big lessons were on achieving proper balanced tension and learning to adjust both the bobbin and top tension.  

A very handy video on that topic can be seen on You Tube here.  At another point, a call to Handi Quilter's Customer Relations about the thread popping out of the upper tension disks resulted in a very simple solution:  check to see if you need to clean out accumulated lint between the disks!  The good news was that my reward for learning the lessons is that I managed to quilt three quilts!! 

A New Project For A Gift  

The first of those was not one of the aforementioned "old projects" but a new one that was a birthday gift for a friend of mine.  As I had noted in a "To Do Tuesday" post last month,  I owed this friend a memory quilt that we have collaborated on the planning of for a couple of years now and for which I have compiled a stash of fabric.  The problem has been that I consider this a very personal and important project so of course have been furiously procrastinating on getting it perfectly designed before starting it!  

However, my friend and her husband had visited us over the holidays and she offered an out of just making her any quilt since that is what she ultimately wants.  Now, it should be noted  I have made this friend a number of things but they have been smaller projects like a wall hanging to commemorate her cat that passed away, a jewelry roll, a desk mat and two mug rugs (seen here and here).  I had made her husband a quilt back in 2017 because we shared two interests and despite the many things I've made her, I think she was a little jealous of that.  

Since the request made over the holidays released me from the obligation of specifically making a memory quilt, clearly that tempted the Quilt Muses to provide an opening!  Two weeks before we were due to leave on our trip, I happened on the absolutely perfect line of fabric and even better it was on sale!

Image from Annie's Catalog now Annie's Attic

The Annie's Catalog site (recently renamed "Annie's Attic") had sent word of a big sale on Fat Quarter Bundles that they were having.   One of them was for a bundle of flannel FQs from the Henry Glass Fabrics "I Love Sn'Gnomies" line.  My friend is a huge fan of the Gnome decorating trend!  Of course the first thing I thought when I saw a bundle of six FQs was that it was the perfect start for my current favorite fast and easy 9 FQ Disappearing Nine Patch quilt design!  It also doesn't hurt that I also love working with flannel for quilts.

Annie's also had a panel from the line so I picked that up too (the last one they had!)  to start off the backing so now I had the prospect of giving her a two sided quilt!  

Then I found an Etsy vendor with another of the prints from the line deeply discounted and they had just enough to help fill out more of the back and provide another FQ.  Another Etsy vendor carried a number of the prints from the line so I was able to order two more FQs to round out the nine I needed and some  yardage to fill out the rest of the backing and for the binding and to have a little extra for stash.

Both my friend and her husband had birthdays (a day apart) coming up while we would be away so with the clock ticking, the plan was to hope everything would arrive quickly enough that I could get this easy to piece quilt done and in the mail before we had to leave.  

Well, at first that was challenged when I realized after I put in the first Etsy order that it wouldn't arrive until we got back from our trip as the vendor was away.  However as luck would have it, an alternate option turned up!  One of the fabrics I had ordered to round out the nine FQ set turned out to be very directional and was cut as a traditional FQ (18" along the lengthwise grain and 22" along the crosswise) but didn't work for how I wanted to place it in this design.  

Not exactly to scale but how it came vs how I needed it.

This is another lesson I have learned as I have made this simple quilt design:  you have to pay attention to directional fabrics in relation to where you want to use them when the nine patch is split.  So I had to go back and order more of that particular fabric.  The vendor only had a one yard cut left and it was already in a lot of peoples carts so I snapped it up immediately even though it was way more than I needed.  When it arrived, it turned out the vendor gave me the "End of the Bolt" so a little more than a yard which was great as I was able to both cut the FQ in the orientation I needed and provide enough extra fabric to help fill out the back in place of the first print I ordered that wouldn't arrive in time.

I did get the top and back pieced the day before we left and had then hoped I'd get it quilted right after we arrived in NC so I could mail it from my MIL's and have it arrive at most just a day or two after their birthdays (I had also brought the gift I had for her husband down with me so they could be mailed back together).  Well that didn't happen either due to the aforementioned "tension lessons" I needed to learn.  However, eventually they got resolved and I got the quilt quilted!

I used a "Snowflake" design to quilt this that came in Pro-Stitcher.  

Since I didn't finish everything up until the day before their birthdays and since they live in New Jersey so are actually on the route of our drive back home, I called to ask if they would be home the day we returned and we ended up dropping their gifts off to them as we passed through the state on the way back to The Bronx.  She absolutely loved the quilt so Mission Accomplished!! 

** Now for the "Old Projects" and feel free to take a break or grab a cuppa before continuing! **

Old Project #1:  Beth's Yellowstone Quilt  

I am thrilled to say that I have finally finished my re-creation of the quilt I was immediately taken with after seeing it in the Yellowstone TV show!

If you watched the show, you will remember when Beth Dutton wrapped herself up in it while staying in the homestead cabin with Rip.  It can be seen in the Season 2 Episode 7 called "Resurrection Day" and again in the Season 3 Episode 3 called "An Acceptable Surrender" which is the image I worked from.  If you've never seen the show, you can check out the scene with the quilt  @10:32 in this "Best of Beth & Rip" video on You Tube.  

I soon learned that I wasn't the only one that loved it because there are many, many people on Etsy offering patterns and/or kits for it (just search for "Beth Dutton Yellowstone Quilt"),  people selling finished quilts like it and at least one You Tuber that had hers hanging in the background of her video!  

It's a pretty simple design that I was able to easily draft up in EQ8 to get the fabric requirements for it.  

I had a leg up once I decided to make it since I had stocked a lot of red prints early in 2022 for making a bunch of Red & White Christmas quilts.  The leftovers of that stash provided all that I needed for this one.  Next I found what would ultimately become the backing fabric for it in October that year when my DH and I went camping on the Blue Ridge Parkway in the western part of NC.  We did a portion of the All Carolinas Shop Hop while there since it was an opportunity to go to stores I wouldn't normally get to visit.  

When we visited my MIL for the second half of that trip, I found the perfect fabric for the alternate squares in the "by the pound" sale cubes at the Keepsake Quilting/Pineapple Fabrics outlet as she and I Shop Hopped in the eastern part of the state near her (and unfortunately that outlet has since closed!).  A month later,  I picked a few of the black and white fabrics out of my stash at home and purchased the rest from Etsy vendors.   

When we visited my MIL again in March of 2023 I brought my accumulated "kit" for this along and managed to cut everything out and sew the top together while there.  

On my design wall after I got back home.

At that time, my MIL hadn't seen the show but when she saw my blocks laid out she wanted to make one too, LOL!!  She has since watched the show as well and on our trip there this month and seeing my finished quilt, finally gathered together fabrics for the nine patches for hers.  She had about half of the blocks made up before we left Sunday but still needs to source the fabric she will use for the alternate squares.

 I also always envisioned binding this with a "ticking stripe" and found what I was looking for -- once again from an Etsy source -- later in the year after I had pieced the top.  I debated for a long time after that about how I wanted to quilt this so it never got to the top of the "To Do" pile during the intervening period.  When we began preparing for the trip down this year, I sorted through my projects to consider what to take.  I thought it would be great if I could quilt this in the same place it was pieced and so packed it up to go.  

I wasn't loving any of the pre-programmed stitch patterns in Pro-Stitcher for this and haven't yet had a chance to try doing free-motion on this machine.  So another new longarm lesson happened when I purchased and downloaded a stitch pattern and loaded it onto the Pro-Stitcher tablet.  I found this one that I thought was perfect given the provenance of the quilt:

It loaded up and stitched out without a hitch!

The only issue I had was that I think I should have sized the pattern to stitch out smaller than I did.  I could have also lined up the pattern better by offsetting the alternate rows so it would have not left as large a gap between the row repeats.  The good news is that I can go back in and fill in those spots with a "barbed wire" motif using my DSM if it really bothers me after I wash the quilt.  But for now, once again "Mission Accomplished"!

Okay (finally) the last one:  Old Project #2: "Dominique" 3 Yard Quilt   

Cool, reporting on this is a two for one!  The quilt pictured below was made pre-blogging so I've never had a chance to share it before.  All the way back in 2008, I made this baby quilt for the then President of the Parent Association in my kids elementary school who gave birth to her third daughter at the end of 2007.  

Apologies for the picture quality these are pre-digital printed pictures.

The other old project I'm sharing today began when I re-organized my stash in the  Summer of 2023 and found  a little more than a  yard remnant of the yellow fabric used in the border of that baby quilt.  By that year I was a big fan of the Fabric Cafe's "3 Yard Quilt" concept so I immediately wondered if I might find a way to use this "found fabric" to make one.  That opportunity came when a pink fabric I had actually purchased to use to make a 3YQ didn't go as well I thought with the fabrics I had coordinated it with when I ordered them.  However, when I sat it with the yellow print, I thought there was something there --- a bit busy but there was something!

I took the two fabrics and went shopping in person for something that might work.  It wasn't easy (did I mention these fabrics are a bit "busy"?)!  Eventually I found a floral print I thought I liked.  Okay, it too was really busy but again there was something appealing to me about the three together.  I think it was that each picked up a color of the other and the white background of the floral was a perfect contrast to the other two more medium value prints with bright highlights.  I figured what the heck, why not try it!  

Although Donna Roberts and her daughter Fran Morgan who design the 3YQ patterns always say "any three yards of fabric can make any 3 Yard Quilt",  I am not always convinced that is true.  I do however love watching all of their videos to see what fabrics they combine together.   I will admit though that I don't always think all their combinations make the most of the design they are applied to.  They are never bad but not always "Wow"!  

So needless to say it took me a long time to choose one of their designs for this busy looking bunch!  Eventually I settled on the "Dominique" pattern from their book "Modern Views" (and note both are also available in digital form).  It was the one design that provided separation between the placement of the floral and the yellow print and I liked that the yellow would be in the outer border like in the original quilt it was used in.  

The top and the perfectly coordinating backing!

This was another quilt top that was made while visiting my MIL and one of two 3 Yard Quilt tops made on our trip there in October of 2023.  This is also another quilt where I found the backing during the All Carolina Shop Hop that year!  Since that time, I have brought this back down to NC twice before but never got to quilt it.  I guess three times is the charm!

Originally I had thought about trying to stitch a block sized pattern in the pink centers and do a border design surrounding them and in the borders.  Yeah right, my longarm skills are no where up to that level of pattern placement yet, LOL!  So I settled for a simple all over pattern.  

And so now another old project has been completed!

Front and back with the label area pieced in.

Now that my looong story is done, I can head back over to Alycia's and see what others have to show for their "Finished Or Not Friday" efforts this week!