boxes and crosses finish

I meant to blog sooner, but time got away from me.  So it's gonna be a fun-filled post, starting with another of the quilts I finished during Longarm Week!

Last summer, I took a kit I purchased at an AQS show the year before to work on.  It was all squares, so fairly simple, but holy wow a lot of points to pin and match!  I finished the top and it came home with me...to the Rack of Shame...

I decided it was fitting that this quilt be quilted a full year after the top was finished!

I had purchased the end of a bolt of Halloween fabric a few months after finishing the top, but wasn't sure what to do with it.  I loved it, but, well...

And one day I was thinking about making a Halloween quilt when it hit me - I already have an orange a grey quilt, so why not pair these two up?  And it turns out the Halloween fabric was enough for the whole quilt!  I guess it was meant to be.

Of course, then I had to decide to quilt it...and what motif(s) to use...but Longarm Week provided a great opportunity.  This quilt was by far the most ambitious as far as quilting, when I decided I wanted to try my hand at some graffiti-type quilting.  But I loaded it up, confident I would be okay.  (The more I do this, the better I am at getting myself out of the corners I inevitably quilt myself into!)

This quilt ate thread like nobody's business.  And bobbins 3, 4, and 5 gave me a heck of a problem.  I tried everything I knew and managed to muddle through, but bobbins 6 and 7 ran like a dream.  A friend and I think it may have been poorly wound bobbins, but 2 was also wound at the same time as the other three errant bobbins, so who knows.  Whatever the case, it straightened itself out after I threatened to put the whole longarm out at the curb with a "good luck" sign on it!

This was the one quilt that I did not finish binding the same day as quilting, but the quilting took a LOT longer than the others.  Never mind the hour or so I spent fighting with bobbins...

Freddie, of course, had to help.  He thinks this is the greatest thing to jump through while it is moving.  So when it has a little extra oomph to move, you know he's slingshotting himself through the hole.  (Thankfully, he doesn't do it often and, so far, I have known he's up there, so I can compensate for his naughtiness!)

This was one I was truly glad to be done with and my whole body ached afterwards.  In part because I was tense with all the troubles, but also because there were a lot of direction changes with the motif of choice.  My arm hurt more than I knew, but the quilt I quilted the following day let me know!

Freddie was also tired.

(That cat is such a goofball.  I love him so much.)

Finally, it was off the longarm and binding was sewn down, so outside I went (a few days later when weather was good) for a photo!

Quilty info:

Name: Boxes and Crosses

From: "By the Bundle" book by Emma Jean Jansen

Size: 70"x70"

And a quilting closeup!

The light was coming through the window so nicely and I noticed this and took the opportunity to get a good constrasty photo for you all!  I'm still learning the graffiti methods and figuring out all the motifs that you can use, so this one has a lot of swirls and not as many pebbles as I might have put in if my machine didn't throw a fit on bobbins 3, 4 and 5 whenever I tried to make them, but it was a good exercise to learn.

It's already been used on the couch, even if my hubby tells me it is ugly.  (He says that about most of my quilts, regardless of what they look like.  He thinks he's funny.  I just tell him no, he's ugly...)

In other quilty news, I worked some on my niece's quilt...

This cutting is very reminiscent of Twirly, but not nearly as intense.  (And my rotary cutter was just sitting there for some reason - I didn't use it to cut these.  I cut by hand with the scissors peeking out there on the edge.)

I have since matched them up into pairs and they are waiting to be sewn.  I plan to visit the AQS show nearby Thursday and then my sis-in-law and I are going to sew.  I thought these would be good, fairly mindless things to work on while we chat and giggle all afternoon!

Even the selvedges are pretty!  I saved these and sent them to a friend who likes to make selvedge quilts.  I think she's crazy, but she's excited to have these...

...as well as all of these in the shoebox.  The collection had been growing for probably two years and I finally decided it was time to tame it.  Since I was already sending off the most recent ones, why not roll these all up tidily and send them too?

Lexie helped.

(So did Freddie and Gabby, but they were too fast for my camera.)

This week I also started cutting pieces for the most recent baby quilt.  I decided that this would be more difficult, so sewing it on Thursday would take more focus than I might have, so I decided to just do it yesterday!

First, cut the pieces...

...but make sure you don't cut all of them.  Math is hard.  Apparently.

Start sewing and cut more pieces as you realize what you've screwed up.  Also, notice that the stripes on the bee are going different directions.  And kick yourself.  Because, as I was walking into the store to buy fabrics, I thought to myself "self: do not choose directional fabrics. that will make this hard."  And then I saw these fabrics and went "oohhh, pretty" and forgot about the directional thing.

But, I did manage to sorta fix the directional thing.  I could have fixed it better, but this is good enough...

I continued to sew yesterday until these were all in one piece.  Now I have to decide how to do the antennae (the directions say to embroider the skinny part and sew a button on after quilting...we'll see...) and continue with sashings.  The hardest part is done and I'm not 100% happy with how they went together, but I'm calling it good.  (I'll show more photos in a later post.)

I've also been sewing batches of blocks for the 100 blocks challenge/quilt along and have just three to share today: #49-51.

This puts me just past halfway and I'm plugging along.  Kinda losing steam and excitement, but I know once they're all done and together, it will be fun again, so I keep going.

And one last note, I won some fabrics and goodies from the book quilt along last week!

I don't know what I'll make with them yet, but they are pretty to look at until I decide!

Time to eat dinner and chill out.  I worked today and then came home and cleaned the house.  I've earned my relaxing tonight!

Happy quilting!

Katie