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 how 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 that 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 that 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 bring with me.  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 also could have 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 as 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, the white background of the floral was a perfect contrast to the other two more medium value prints with bright highlights and each print had a different scale (size and density) of print.  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 of 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 2023.  This is also another quilt where I found the backing during the All Carolina Shop Hop that year!  I brought this back down to NC twice in 2024 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!

Finished Or Not Friday: Spring Quilts and Gifts

This week I am once again joining in with those reporting their finishes along with our esteemed hostess Alycia for Finished or Not Friday!  

It's always interesting to me how projects get started or evolve.  This quilty finishing tale started back in 2014 when I made "Fabric Gal" to use to decorate my bed for Spring.  

In 2016, we gifted that quilt to my husband's convalescing aunt to brighten her hospital room.  Everyone that visited enjoyed the quilt and when she passed away we gave the quilt to her daughter.  Of course that meant I now needed another Spring quilt.  

In 2017, I purchased a "juicy" bright fabric bundle from the Turning Twenty online store.  Since this was not the usual kind of colorway I worked with, I did not immediately come up with a design to make with it.  In fact, that didn't happen until 2020 while we were stuck in our homes due to the COVID quarantine.  

We quilters were fortunate that so many quilt designers came up with new designs and quilt alongs to keep us busy while under lock down.  That year Gudrun Erla of GE Designs held a free quilt along for her new pattern "Elvira".  I was excited to participate as it also meant using my favorite Stripology ruler.  I added fabric to the bundle I had purchased to fill out the amount of fabric I needed for the project....

....then followed along and made up the top.

However with loads of other quarantine projects afoot, it sat while I debated on how to quilt it up.  

In 2023 and still without a Spring quilt for my bed,  I found in my stash what I thought was a yard of the Peach floral fabric I had used for the borders of the "Fabric Gal" quilt.  By now I was a big fan of the Fabric Cafe "3 Yard Quilts" and saw this as an opportunity to make one.  I purchased some coordinating fabrics to go with what I had and took it with me down to my MIL's in North Carolina for our annual Fall visit and mini Quilt Retreat (she is also a quilter).  

When I started cutting the fabric for the pattern I picked for it -- "Heartland" -- I realized I actually had a little more than two yards of that border fabric.  I decided that rather than make the lap size quilt that the 3 Yard patterns typically make, I could "upsize" it to a twin if I could get more of the coordinates.  I was able to find one while in NC but had to wait until I returned home to NY to get more of the second.  Before long I had doubled the basic design into a twin top!

Finished top and backing purchased on a Shop Hop while in NC.

When I didn't get around to quilting it by the end of that year,  I planned to bring it back down to my MIL's and try to quilt it on her new long arm.  We returned in May of this year for the funeral of another of her sisters.  While there I did load the quilt onto the longarm but for reasons I didn't understand at the time, I couldn't get the pattern I wanted to stitch out.  

While there, I was showing a friend of my MIL a picture of the "Elvira" top that "Heartland" was now replacing.  She really liked the bright colors of it and since she was in the process of finalizing a move to retire to my MIL's town, I decided that I would bring it back down when we returned to visit in the Fall and quilt it up as a surprise housewarming gift for her.  

In the meantime, after returning back home with the unquilted "Heartland" top, I lucked up on receiving information about a "Free Motion Quilting Summit" being held in August.  Adria Goode who was one of the presenters showed her "Big Flower" stitch pattern and I just knew it would work for "Heartland".  With many other projects on my plate, I didn't start quilting it until late September, getting it about half way done.  

I had to break from working on it because we were now scheduled to return to my MIL's in early October.  While there I finally got the "Elvira" quilting going.  I pieced together a backing that included a strip of scraps leftover from piecing the top and included a label.  I then picked out a large continuous line flower stitch pattern to use to quilt it.

I went with the simpler Blossom E2E pattern.

Luckily with a lot of new lessons learned on this trip about working with the longarm,  I was able to get it all stitched out!

And before you know it the quilt was finished!

Two days before we left I trimmed and bound it and it was ready for gifting along with another little gift that can be seen in this post!

On our return home it was now time to also get the "Heartland" quilt finished.  I worked on that this week and now it too is finished!  

As a throw back to the "Fabric Gal" quilt, I still had some of the panel fabric I used for the label of that quilt so made a similar label for the new "Heartland" one! 

Previous and New Labels!

I look forward to when I can use this one in the Spring!

I also look forward to checking out what everyone else has made up this week over at Alycia's for Finished or Not Friday!  There's always good stuff to see so be sure to check it out yourself!

Quilting Travelogue - Part 2: Long Arm Quilting and a Gift

I my last post I talked about the piecing, cross stitching and shop hopping I did on our recent visit to my MIL in North Carolina.  In this post, I'll cover the quilt stitching I did and who benefitted from it!

(Long Arm) Quilting

One of the big plans for this trip to was to try to get a lot of quilts quilted.  On the one hand, it was a mixed bag on that.  I had brought one that had already been partially quilted on my Juki and I wanted to finish it to show my MIL how that machine stitches as a mid-arm DSM.

That folded bit of Kente is the layered quilt as I stacked up what I was going to bring.

This is one of the potential gifts for my community garden's Steering Committee members.  I'm not sure why I didn't finish quilting this when I worked on it last year --- I think I got "into my head" on the stitching and then put it aside.  

I was encouraged to get back to it after seeing the same stitch pattern I used demonstrated in one of the sessions I watched during the Free Motion Quilting Summit in August.  I realized that whatever had bugged me was now moot.  Unfortunately, this is another thing that we were too busy with other things for me to get to.  My plans are to try to finish this one up before the year ends.

I will say that I DID make a lot of progress on longarming!  I really learned a lot on this trip and most of that education came as we went about solving problems!  As a result, I think I now fully understand (and remember!) the steps to load a quilt on to the frame.  

The store that my MIL purchased her longarm from was on the Shop Hop and we stopped there so she could buy some "leader grips". 

You can see a demo of how they work in this video.

They really do help make loading faster as opposed to pinning your backing and top to the frame leaders.  The woman in the store advised getting a two-leader set but after trying them out we realized that a three leader set would have been better. 

I also confirmed what I needed to do to set up a stitch pattern.  It's important to keep whatever pattern I choose (and re-size) within the longarm's "frame space"  which is approximately equivalent to the depth of the throat space.  I also took pictures of all the pattern screens so I can plan before I arrive how I want to set up a quilt to be quilted.

This is just some of the installed designs.

The best news is that a long over due UFO got not only quilted but gifted!  My MIL has a good friend and former co-worker who has retired from New York to North Carolina and now lives in my MIL's town.  I had taught them both to quilt when both were still in NY.  The friend and her sister who was visiting her also came with us on the Shop Hop, a first for both!  

I had shown her a picture of this quilt top when we were both in NC back in May for my MIL's sister's funeral:

When she mentioned that she really, really liked it, I decided right then to gift it to her as a surprise housewarming gift.  This is the "Elvira" top I had made during Gudrun Erla's first Quarantine Quilt Along back in 2020.  Thanks to all the good lessons I learned this trip, I was able to successfully quilt this one on the longarm without too many problems. 

I'll do a full finish report on it tomorrow since there were a few more lessons learned both during and after it was quilted.  Like the fact that I didn't learn until after it was finished that I actually loaded it onto the frame wrong!  Although this is the shot of it fresh off the longarm, before we left it was also trimmed, bound and gifted.  

In my previous post, I noted that I had done some additional piecing and that was for another gift -- this time to christen the friend's new craft room in her new home.

This is a "Sewing Fairy" made from the pattern by Deborah Fisher of Fish Museum and Circus.  I learned about Deborah's designs when she was one of the presenters at July's Quilt Summer Camp.  Her session at Camp was on decorative "fussy cut" binding.  She has designed fabric lines for Windham Fabrics that are printed to facilitate the technique.  I purchased some of it from her after the Camp which is when I also saw her "Fairy" pattern.  Knowing that I planned to make a quilt housewarming gift, I figured a "Fairy" stuffed with little quilty notions would be a cool "new craft studio" gift as well!

 After "Elvira", we loaded my MIL's "Monochromatic Quilt" that was a guild challenge project and also finished that one.  

I did bring a second quilt for longarming.  Now that I know a little more about how to set up the patterns for stitching out, I also understand better how to position them on the quilt top.  I picked out the designs I wanted to use for that quilt and figured out where I wanted to position them on the top.  However, understanding that I needed to do that within the limits of the longarm's throat space, it meant I would need to stitch out the patterns in sections.  That was too big a task to try to tackle in the last day we were there.  So, yet another project is now packed away for the next trip down.  Whew!  Those two weeks went so quick when you have so much to do!

To Do Tuesday: Trip Recap and Plans For the Rest of the Week

It's been a while but I am back again for another:

Hosted by Carol at Quilt Schmilt

My DH and I are back from the trip for the family funeral that I mentioned in my last post.  We wound up staying an extra day so only got back yesterday.  While you hate for a death to be the reason for extended family to get together,  it was a happy opportunity to re-connect with three generations of family and friends we hadn't seen in a long while.  Another plus is that plans were put in motion for a family reunion for next year.  

However, with all the visiting with family, it meant less time than expected to spend quilting with my MIL.  We did get to a few things:  I made up the backing for the "Heartland" 3 Yard Quilt top I had started on our visit to her last Fall.  I had purchased the backing fabric for it during the shop hop we did then and finished the top once I got back home.  

Now having brought it back down with me, I managed to get it loaded on her longarm frame in the hopes of quilting it on this trip.    

The day I did that, I also had the opportunity to show something to the daughter of another of my MIL's sisters.  The last time we were together was eight years ago and I had gifted her mother a quilt while she was in the hospital that I had originally made for myself for Spring decorating.  When her mother passed, the quilt was passed on to the daughter.  Now I have finally used the pretty floral fabric I had leftover from that quilt project to make this new one for myself.  

Once everyone left, I finished picking out an edge to edge design to quilt it with.  The design I wanted to use was kind of dense so I formatted it to be stitched more spread out on the top.  However, that created issues due to the limited experience I have working with the machine and rudimentary knowledge on how to get the design to stitch out.  I spent the rest of the night trying figure out how to get it to work but couldn't.  Knowing we'd be out most of the next day, I ultimately had to pull it back off the frame and initially decided to just bring it back home and quilt it on my DSM instead.  

Because we decided to stay an extra day, we did manage to also load a smaller wall hanging my MIL had pieced.  Once again there was a lot of back and forth and layout changes made to how we thought we could get the design she picked to stitch out.  We ultimately were able to get that one done.  Fortunately that also meant we got to demo the machine in action for her friend, another quilter, who was also staying with her.  It was not perfectly stitched but my MIL was happy with the results.  

The good news is that some of what I learned working on that and from our previous session back in February have given me some insight into how I might take another shot at getting the "Heartland" quilt successfully longarmed.  So I will bring it back again on our next trip down in the Fall.   Like they say, every project is practice for the next one!

Unfortunately, no work done on these two!

I didn't find all the kinds of custom stitch patterns I wanted for the other quilt I brought down (in the Apples bag) that I wanted to longarm so that too didn't get worked on.  Since we were in and out most days, I never got around to doing any piecing on the project I brought for that (in the project bag).  So those two will have to wait as now that I am back home, the machine currently in my table needs a long over do cleaning and oiling session:

And since my 401 is the only zigzag machine in the house, before I take it out of the table I want to work on two projects that need that feature.   

Ever since the pandemic, I've wanted to make a "Jelly Roll Rug" for my kitchen.  I got the pattern and the bulky batting rolls back then and finally caught the jelly rolls I wanted on sale in 2022.  Since I am also trying to Spring clean the quilt space in particular and the house in general, getting this project done will help with both!  

Zigzag Project #2 will be to finally work on Pat Sloan's "Breakfast Club" applique Quilt Along that she hosted from January to March.  

I've had the fabric sitting on my sewing table since then but other projects took priority.  Since this is also planned for the kitchen, getting it done will add to the Spring spruce-up to be done in there.   So I figure those will be the priority quilt projects for this week and possibly the next.  The hope is after that I'll swap my Juki in to the sewing table and try to get in a free-motion quilting groove and work on my "To Be Quilted" backlog until the start of Summer.

On the cross stitch front, the project I took for stitching on the way down has moved forward some:

Pattern by Brenda Gervais of With Thy Needle and Thread

When I left, only the "IT", the "D" and part of the "G" had been done and that last letter had to be re-done because I had started the placement of it wrong.  I had thought this would be an easy stitch since it's so open.  However, I am still getting my sea legs on stitching on Evenweave so didn't get as much done while away as hoped.  I also made some last minute thread changes last night, grabbing two colors from other projects (one finished, one in progress) that had what I was looking for.   So now I'll continue with it this week until I get the stitching done.  Hopefully then I'll get the project bag it is going to be part of done next week.   

That should all be more than enough to keep me busy as I expect we'll also need to sign up for shifts in our community garden now that it's open for the season.  Still hoping May will be a little less frantic than the last few months have been.  It helps too that we are all enjoying more sunshine and warm weather now that Spring has fully sprung!   And when you come back inside, take some time to also check out what everyone else has going on for this week over at Quilt Schmilt!

February Recap: Part 5 - A Little Finished Or Not Friday Reporting

Happy March to all who are participating in this week's "Finished Or Not Friday" session hosted by the lovely and gracious Alycia of Quilty Girl (and Quilts of Valor)! 

I have two contributions for this last report on the things I worked on in February:  one is "Not Finished" and the other is a very important "Finish" for me!  

Almost A Flimsie

In my last post I talked about attending the big Quilt Con show during a visit to my MIL in North Carolina.  Once that weekend of modern quilts and excitement was over, it was time for my MIL and I to get back to our mini quilt retreat and working on some of our own projects.  

In that post about the show, I talked about using scrap strings to make a cover for the little notebook I used to take lecture notes.  The reason I had those strings along with me on the trip was because I brought this project with me to work on.

It is Abigail Dolinger's "Scrap Vortex" design that originally appeared in McCall's Quick Quilts June/July 2019 but can also be purchased as an individual pattern.   I've long liked this design and was encouraged to finally start it in order to try to participate in Emily Bailey's (of Aunt Em's Quilts) strip quilt challenge that had an early March deadline.  

I had gathered fabrics for the dark corner squares and the first two solid fabric borders but had problems finding a fabric for the third border.  Actually, I found one I really liked in my stash but of course it wasn't enough for what I needed and I couldn't find more of it.  So I was hoping to find an alternative at the show.  Luckily I did!  

The medium gray calico was the fabric I had originally hoped to use for the third fabric border but found the replacement fabric below it in the GE Designs vendor booth at the show.  I then hoped to finish the top before we left NC but only got this far with it by that time.  

Still hoping to make the challenge deadline, I continued work on it once we got back home.  Unfortunately I didn't get it done in time and I still have three sides of the last string border to add at this point.  

And of course, as often happens with scrap projects, it feels like I've still barely made a dent in the string stash!!

A Long Awaited Mystery Finish!

As I had talked about in this recap post, the big task for our little quilting retreat was to try to learn to use the computerized Pro Stitcher Lite software on the Handi Quilter Moxie long arm my MIL had purchased during the shop hop we did on our last visit back in the Fall.  You know how they say two heads are better than one?  Well it must be true because we got some done!  We stitched two of hers...

....and I got one of mine done!  

Long arming done and edges trimmed

This is a big thrill since this top, aptly named for the mystery as "An Oldie But A Goodie" is just that!  I made the top all the way back in 2014 for the last mystery hosted by the Planet Patchwork website before they shut down.  It has been sitting all this time and now it is a lovely and bound finish!!

All that's left of the pretty binding fabric.

I did learn some lessons about long arming through this process.  Loading a quilt on a frame is less time consuming than pin basting but you really do need all that excess batting and backing around the edges of the top both to help with tensioning and to provide space to test your stitch tensions and patterns.  

Setting up your desired pattern to stitch out on your top how and where you want it and learning the mechanics of advancing the quilt, basting it for each advancement and resuming a design if the stitching is interrupted or you need to change bobbins, all take practice to master.  

Bonus lesson from the Quilt Con Show:  We had checked out the Wonderfil Threads booth, particularly their DecoBob 80 and Invisifil 100 Weight threads.  Oh boy, those threads are a wonderful alternative to using monofilament thread on multi-colored tops!  

After seeing the quilted samples in the booth, I purchased two spools of 100 wt. in Beige and light Gray and a spool of the 80 wt in a medium Gray planning to try them out on the "Over/Under" quilt I had struggled with quilting using monofilament last year.   

However, I wound up using the Beige 100 wt. for this quilt and thought it stitched out beautifully over all the many colors of fabrics I used in this top.  My MIL had purchased pre-wound bobbins in the 80 wt. which they carry for all different classes of long arm machines and that was used for this quilt too.  

I used about 1-1/4 bobbins to stitch out the Baptist Fan pattern on this 47" x 60" quilt.  I definitely look forward to stocking up on more of it!  Fortunately, they gave us a list of dealers that sell it in NC and at least one of the shops usually participates in the "All Carolinas Shop Hop" in the Fall which is when we'll be returning for our next visit.  I will definitely have a wish list with me then!  

So that wraps up my doings for February and I am thrilled that it coincided with the first FONF report for March.  Now I can head back over to Alycia's to see what everyone else has going on as the Spring rains come in and prepare the way for the flowers we will see before long!