valle crucis finishes and more

The quilt-along for Quilts for Kids has ended and I have to quilts to share!

First up, my first pull:

And second is my second pull of fabrics:

They really are flatter than this, but I was struggling with the wind, timing between rain showers and my clothesline isn't a straight line because, well, that's the nature of rope strung across a long space.  Also, I might have been struggling to frame things properly with the camera...my days aren't always perfect!

After having made my list of quilts waiting for longarming last week, I got busy with these two.  They have a deadline and I wanted them done first.  But my longarm is being fussy.  I quilted these simply with a loop-de-loop, figuring something simple to build my confidence again would be good.  The quilting went okay (more on the longarm shortly), but I had some other issues...

Despite measuring and carefully loading, I needed a bit more fabric here...

I unhooked the end from the longarm and, as I've done before, brought in my little machine and added fabric on.  It isn't the easiest solution, but it could have been worse.  I had more fabric that matched and room to work.

While I ran upstairs for the fabric, *someone* decided to put a little extra love into the quilts.  He does love kids, so I guess it's only fair.

These quilts will be washed (actually, they have been in the fully-finished photos above), so I wasn't too worried.  He does look rather proper here, though, doesn't he?  Good kitty posture.

When I got it done and trimmed, this is where I stood:

I used about a quarter of an inch of that extra fabric.  But because this had to be pinned to leaders on the longarm, and the machine needs room to maneuver around those leaders, I needed more than just that quarter inch, as the earlier photo showed.  Turns out, this didn't even show once I got the binding sewn on!  But that's okay with me.

After that, I double-checked (again) the backing for the second quilt.  It was enough, but I still loaded carefully and had to laugh when I got to the last roll and saw this:

I had more than enough!  While I still would have needed the extra piece sewn on to get it properly onto the longarm, I didn't actually need it for the back.  I (and all longarmers out there) prefer this problem to the first one I shared!

After I had cut and pressed the binding for these, I realized I needed to machine sew the binding down - both sides.  I had cut it skinnier than I would have, had I known better, but I just adjusted my needle to have a slightly narrower seam allowance and it worked out fine.

But I was dreading that machine sewing of binding.  I haven't done it since my last round of Quilts for Kids, back in 2011!  (And I realized in that post, I linked to a tutorial for doing that binding...)  I sorta remembered how, but I consulted the interwebs for additional information because I remember nearly bleeding to death for all the pins I needed to put in and that stabbed and thought I could learn something.  Canuck Quilter has a great tutorial that helped me a lot - particularly suggesting I use Wonder clips.  Also, she mentions the game-changer, pressing the binding!  I did much better this time and was able to even place the clips 3-4" apart, not on top of each other, as I remember doing with pins.  The corners gave me a bit of a struggle, but after just two, I figured out that pins were the key for me in that specific spot and I am no longer as afraid of doing binding this way.  But I still like the look of it hand-sewn.

Anyways...

After these two going fairly well, I thought I could attempt a larger quilt.  I'll share more of the story of that quilt soon, as it is done (except a label) and needs to go to its new home very soon.  But my longarm was not in the mood.  I finally broke down and called the nearest dealer, asking about a service call, figuring I could get a whole-machine tune-up type thing done.  Well.  Because I bought my machine from a person, used, not a dealer, they will not schedule a service call because their service people are too busy.  I understand that I might need to wait a while.  I understand that I'm a few hours from their store and it might require a consolidation approach to scheduling.  What I don't understand is why my money isn't as good as that from someone who paid them directly for their machine.  And what I can tell you is that they have lost my business for any extras I will ever need for my machine again.  (Not the company, just this dealer.)  Thankfully, my machine is built to be able to maintain yourself and there is a wonderful community of owners on Facebook that are helpful and encouraging and knowledgeable.  But I just thought, after 10+ years of use, a "spa day" wouldn't be a bad thing.  Instead, I just get to be my own mechanic!  So, when the hubby and I can coordinate time off, we'll be adjusting the hopping foot height (I need his muscles - it's a tight nut to crack!) and hoping that is the problem.  If not, we'll keep going with less-simple solutions.

I did, however, get the quilt finished.  Lots of thread breaks and a few thread snarls on the back I didn't realize were there until afterwards, but I got it done.  I might have made up some new swear words.

And then I hand-bound it.

Toby helped.

Well, he was involved.

I'll share the whole quilt story in a week or so, after it makes it to my friend.

The longarm adjustment requires some fancy Allen wrenches, of which the hubby does not own.  He collects and hoards tools like a quilter does fabrics, so it was not a hard thing to convince him to go to Harbor Freight for a new toy.  Even if he had to use it to fix mine.  While we were out and about, JoAnn fabrics is just a few blocks away and it's about time I get Christmas fabrics for the annual pillowcases.

Though many of the Christmas calicos were not in the area with the other calicos and it took a minute to find them all, this year I got some really awesome fabrics and I am going to have a hard time giving these away!  The fabric has been washed and pressed and folded neatly, awaiting sewing, but I'm in no hurry to get these made.  Currently I am working on getting my tiny stars into rows, as my guild has a sewing day in a few weeks (on a Saturday that I am not scheduled by some fluke!), and I'd like to have that project to work on there, if anyone else commits to going.  (We're notoriously light in participation and if I'm going to be there alone, I might as well sew at home!)

While I was waiting to get these cut, I noticed they had rolls of batting on sale.  Not quite the price of Black Friday, but I also had a 25% coupon off everything - even sale items - so into the cart went a big roll of batting.  And then I got a receipt with this at the bottom:

Yeah, that's how I like to do things!  (I only spent $103!)

So it's been a fairly good quilty week.  Three quilts from my list have been completed and I'm itching to get another done.  And another.  And another.  (Really, I'm excited about getting my machine adjusted to run well again so I can better focus on what I'm quilting, not whether my machine is going to have a snarly hissy fit!  Then I can actually get better!  Probably?!)

The remainder of the week has been, well, meh.  The dryer quit, so that cost a bit to have a guy come out and change the thermal fuse.  It could have been worse and he worked fast.

Work was a little stressful, as the district manager was in to audit our freight procedure.  Long story short, it wasn't my best day at work that day!  But I still have a job and I learned something.

And this week, it was my turn to go to the doctor.  Just a yearly physical, meeting a new doctor (my old one quit).  She says I'm boring.  Medically.  She made sure to clarify that.  But she is really nice and even complimented my mask (one I made), saying it looked professional!  And best yet, taking myself to the doctor is a LOT simpler than a cat.

Time to get back to the tiny stars.  I have 24 rows sewn up, so 8 more to go, unless I decide I want it to be 33x33, then I need to pick out another row.  That should go a lot faster than the first 32 that I did all at once!

Happy quilting!

Katie