Dear Hubby gifted me with a Long Arm Quilting Class.  It was fun, exhausting, and a bit frustrating all at the same time.  As usual, my current skills and where I want to be are not aligned.  It was fun, because it was all new to me.  Exhausting, because there was so much information to take in all at once, and frustrating, because I wanted to free motion instead of following a pantograph.  All in all, a very good experience.

I was asked to have a small quilt ready, no larger than 40″ x 40″.  So, I opted to do a baby quilt.  I love novelty children’s fabrics, so I pulled out some Pirate fabric, some coordinating scraps, and made a baby Pirate quilt.  As I don’t have a baby in my life currently, I think I will put it aside for future grandchildren 🙂

And, when it came down to it, I really liked it, so I signed up to rent the Long Arm for three days (they had a buy two get the third rental free).  Dear Hubby said it’s a gift that keeps on giving 🙂

Me and my instructor, Becky:

I have finally finished and given the quilt to my mother.  I love how it turned out.  It was fun to make (no constraints of a pattern), and I picked out my favorite colors.  And mom loved it!

Well, I have finally finished my first quilt! (first since I took up quilting again).  This one is for my mother-in-law.  She favors earth tones, so I combined my love of pink, and her browns to make this log cabin quilt.  My friend Ellie helped me pick out the fabrics.  Piecing was a cinch, but then it sat on my table for weeks, until I got the determination to finish it.  Stitching in the ditch went pretty smoothly, then I decided to do some free motion on the borders… Practicing free motion on a 12″ x 12″ sandwich is very different from quilting a whole quilt.  Let’s just say, once I got started, there was no going back.  The thought of taking out all those stitches was not so exciting, so I just sallied forth and it was “everything goes” free motion.  In the process, my 16 year old Singer started giving me trouble… Perhaps, a new machine is on the horizon?

My friend Ellie invited  me to join another quilt group, the Sew Sisters.  It is a wonderful  group of women with a passion for quilting.  We have been meeting in the evenings, and since I didn’t want to lug my machine around, I decided to start a Dorothy’s Garden Girls Quilt, and work on the embroideries there.  These blocks are fun to put together, and just the vintage style that I am into right now.  The pattern I used is from a book called “Threads from the ’30s”.  Here are the first two blocks I completed:

I have been quilting for almost three months now.  So far, I have two completed quilt tops and nine other quilts at various stages (some just started).  Yes, I think I do have some OCD tendencies! And, I will probably add to the quilt tops before any of them get completed, sooo…  I mentioned earlier that I did some quilting a long time ago.  I thought I’d share a baby quilt I made for my dear younger son just before he was born – 21 years ago!  It’s a small baby quilt with bunnies on it.  I machine quilted and machine embroidered, and painted some features with acrylic paint.  It has withstood the test of time, but back then, quilting was a free for all for me.  I just used fabrics I liked regardless of type and blend.  Rather than quilt it, I tied it.  And now, it sits on a rocking chair in dear younger sons room.  It makes me smile, every time I have the occasion to peek in.  And, I am still eying his room for my future sewing room 🙂

Here are the last two Quilty Barn blocks from Lori Holt’s Quilty Barn A Long.  I also made a second Tractor Label, this time a pink one.  After all, it’s a Vintagy Farm “Girl” Tractor Label.

I love the sunnyside up egg fabric, and the John Deere Tractor fabric.  Now, all that is left are six more Quilty Silo Barn blocks to go.

As if the Quilty Barns weren’t cute enough, Lori Holt of Bee In My Bonnet added a new Quilty Silo Barn to her Quilty Barn Along.  I think she is planning 9 blocks, but I may just make an additional three.  Here are the first four.  I made the barns all different colors.  And I put little characters in the barn windows –  I just love the little pig in barn #4!

And now, I think I am caught up with the Quilty Barn A Long – Yippee!!!

August is such a hot month around here.  I’ve kept busy, but haven’t sat down long enough in front of my computer to post.  Anyway, here is my Quilty Barn #10 & Vintagy Farm Girl Tractor Label Block of Lori Holts Quilty Barn Along.  Lori came up with this cute tractor block to use as a label for the finished quilt.  I may have to make another one, since there will be at least two quilts coming out of this Barn Along.

Happy Pink Saturday!  Thank you to Beverly at How Sweet The Sound for hosting this weekly event.

Here is Quilty Barn #9  of Lori Holt’s Quilty Barn A Long.  The wind was kicking up a bit when I tried taking these photos.

I think there are three more barns to go, and then there are also the Quilty Silo Barns to start on as well as the tractor label.

I just got my sewing machine extension work table – yayyy!  Now I have everything to quilt, except for my machine quilting skills.  My instructor said you need 24 hours, or was it 48 hours? of practice before you become somewhat adept.  So, with my usual can do attitude ( only for things that I really want to do and am interested in :)) I have been doing the 3 P’s.  I have thus far two quilts waiting to be quilted, and will probably have a couple more before I feel ready to finish them off…

Always nice to read up on things:

Goofing around.  Haven’t mastered the speed/hand coordination yet – still really jaggedy:

Another one of my sweet dolls keeping me company:

Thanks for stopping by!

– Linda