Gold Medal!

My table insert arrived yesterday and I am THRILLED with my Sew Perfect table! As soon as I am done with my morning errands I will be quilting something. Cannot wait.

I should also mention that I was able to assemble it myself which says a LOT for good directions and how well made it is. All I needed help with was getting the tools from my husband and moving it into the room.

That's all for now!

A Little More

A little more quilting that is.

I started trimming Arkansas Crossroads today so I could attach the binding but I kept getting distracted by these white crosses. I wasn't liking how "poofy" they look next to the crisp patchwork squares. So I got busy with my red Frixion pen and back to Mr. Juki I went.

Much better!

Next up was a stop at the ironing board to remove the Frixion lines and now I'm back where I started ready to trim and bind. Sometimes the quilt really is trying to tell me something and I need to pay better attention!

Aren't these bright little squares (1.5" finished) the cutest? I'm linking up to I Quilt@Pretty Bobbins.

I Quilt

Gemma who blogs over at Pretty Bobbins is starting up a new weekly linky party and I'm just going to share her words about it:

This linky is for you if you like to quilt, if you love to quilt, if you’re just dipping your toe into the (quilting) water, if you have a domestic or long arm machine and if you want to learn and share your quilting journey.  I want to emphasize that there is no need to share a finished project and please don’t be scared to join in if you’re a total newbie.  All I ask is that you talk about your quilting process.

I think that covers most of us! So I am definitely going to be checking out the links each Thursday and I hope that you will too if you are interested in learning more about about quilting. And some weeks I hope to share what I've learned about about quilting too.

I can honestly say that I LOVE to walking foot quilt on my Juki 2010Q aka Mr. Juki. This machine is designed for quilting with a large throat. Look at how much more room there is (especially heightwise!)

 than there is on my Pfaff Quiltstyle.

The largest UFO I finished on my Pfaff was Pink, White & Black Strings. It measured 48" by 72" and literally got stuck in my machine twice - so stuck that I had to clip my threads and work it out through the back of the machine! And I can't tell you how many times I would catch the quilt top on the presser foot lever which lifted towards the throat.

But what do I love about walking foot quilting itself? I love how it accents the quilt but allows the fabrics to shine.

I also love how it can echo a design element to add a little bit of interest and emphasize some details of the pattern.

I love making waves with my walking foot too!

Or just lines of pretty thread.

But maybe most of all, I love my walking foot because it helps me get quilts DONE!

I look forward to adding FMQ to my skill set as well as hand quilting during 2014. I would love to be able to choose the quilting style that best suits each quilt and the time I have available to finish it. But I'll always be in awe of my walking foot for getting me through my Year of FINISH!

Quiltathon and Blog Hop Winners

Hats off to everyone who quilts large tops on their domestic machines! Seriously... I am in awe of you. Moving this top around is a bit of work. In fact I'll just say it - I'm a big time WIMP! And, yes, I know this isn't even big as in king or queen size, but it is huge to me. Wimpy Wimpy Wimpy... that's me.

I had to take a break and work on a kid size top so I could relax for while. I'm loving the teal thread on this one!

Now I'm back at the biggie and hoping to get to halfway done tonight. Our son gets his wisdom teeth out tomorrow morning so I think I'll have some time to shove push guide it along while he's dozing in the adjacent family room after we get home. I've got the ice packs ready to go and fingers crossed for an uneventful recovery over the weekend.

The lucky numbers chosen by Mr. Random for my Pin It Blog Hop Giveaway were...

  

who are...

Congratulations to Linda and Bettina! Both have already replied and I will making their wristband pincushions next week. Thanks to everyone who entered and left such wonderful comments on Monday. I enjoyed getting ideas for new color combinations too.

2 Finishes on Friday

Things are cooking in my quilting room and I've got 2 finishes for Project Linus that are fully baked~!

"Come Sail Away" is a simple pattern of my own I call Noodle Recipe because it uses 2.5" strips which at the time were known as noodles in the online swaps I participated in. A perfect quick and easy charity or baby quilt!  It measures 40" x 40" and I made a bunch of tops using this pattern in 2006.

I used a flannel from my stash to back it and picked the lime binding to match them both. The quilting is a simple grid using white Auriful thread. I love the splashes of orange in this quilt!

My new cutting table (click HERE in case you missed it!) has been completely broken in with sandwiching and trimming now. I have NO excuse to put off sandwiching anymore!

I had just set the trimmed quilt and binding down and when I turned around after clearing up my scraps guess who had sneakily made it his own? LOL... only a Mean Momma with finishes on her mind would disturb that comfort!

Finish #2 for today is "Kitchen Sink Strings" which I'm estimating a start date of 2008 during my Era of All Things Strings. This quilt measures 42.5" by 56.5" and contains a little bit of all kinds of fabrics (a few shabby chic blocks, some Christmas, Easter and I guess what ever I had in my string bin). This one doesn't have a centering strip of one color and I really like the random scrappy look.

The pastel corner fabric shown here was used to make the crib layette I made in 1991 when I was pregnant with our daughter. Vintage! I used fleece for one step batting/backing per my usual string finishing method and used a variegated Star thread for quilting.

And, I used a new binding foot that I had bought back in April after a recommendation of this Ebay store by Teri who blogs at Patchwork Playground and shares my Juki TL2010q love. It worked like a charm - I attach my binding to the back, then pull it over and butt it up against the left edge of this foot to sew it down from the front - easy peasy! Thanks Teri!

I'm linking up to TGIFF@Blossom Heart Quilts, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop@Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Feline Friday@sarah did it!, Let's Make Baby Quilts@Michelle's Romantic Tangle and Finish it Friday@Crazy Mom Quilts.

Thursday Thoughts

Handmade for Newtown wrapped up last week and raised over $5,000! My Super Bright Strings quilt was auctioned off for $143. I gave it a last once-over with the lint roller, wrapped it up in tissue paper with a bow made of selvages and mailed it off yesterday to a very kind-hearted new owner.

I've had these cute bags from Debbie from A Quilter's Table on my Make Someday List and was excited to read about the Triple Zip Along which is getting underway on Monday, January 28th. I've got my fabric picked out and zippers ordered!  It's not too late in join the fun.

                                                  

Beth who blogs at Quilting Hottie Haven is launching a month long UFO event called Drop and Give me Twenty (DaGMT 2013) complete with prizes. Click HERE to read all about it.  First, you must make a pledge...

I, Deb who is the not-so-proud owner of a Fab UFO Collection, am joining Quilting Hottie Haven's second annual DaGMT event, and pledge to quilt for 2 hours every day of the month of February, 2013. In doing so I hope to finish 10 UFOs (to be listed on my sidebar Feb. 1st but you can get a sneak peak at my selection pool HERE) and I think Beth Helfter is brilliant for coming up with this concept and inspiring me to join.
Did you notice how I added my January Goals to my sidebar as a constant guilt inducing tactic gentle reminder? Considering I had company for the 1st week followed by a week of a sick son and problems with new sewing machine deliveries I'm not doing so bad. I'm heading down the homestretch on the binding for Shabby Roses (goal 3) and I'll be quilting my Valentine's Day table runner today (goal 7).  FMQ practice sessions (goal 9) are ongoing and I'll be heading back to Christmas over the weekend to work on goals 1 & 2.
We braved our absolutely frigid weather to see Life of Pi on Monday night. I love a movie that really makes you think after leaving the theater, which Life of Pi certainly did, but the thing I enjoyed the most about the movie was the amazing cinematography. I found myself gasping several times at the sheer beauty on the screen. I'm starting to think I should go see it again! Tucker is getting tired of being called "Richard Parker" by all of us.
I have my Juki set up on my sewing table and my Pfaff set up on my spare folding table which are both out in the middle of my quilting room right now. When I walked in yesterday I could not stop looking at the insane difference in height of these machines! Check this out.

I'm using my 6.5" square ruler in these pics. See the peek of my Valentines Day runner ready to be sandwiched back there? With no more wavy edges thanks to the IDF on my Pfaff!

Isn't it amazing? Just a few well placed inches makes all the difference in the world!  Not to mention the design for quilting... see the presser foot on the Juki completely behind the machine? On the Pfaff it's harder to see behind the 6" vertical line on the right. When you raise it goes sideways up into the arm space. I can't tell you how many times I've caught it on the quilt and had it slam down.

Two More Quilts for Project Linus

Call me crazy... but all I want to do is quilt tops these days! Here are my UFO finishes #5 and #6 for 2013, both are made using the free Warm Wishes pattern at Quiltmaker.com.

Ballerina Cats will be purrfect for a sweet little girl!

I backed it with adorable dancing little girls.

Pastel pink is a hard color to photograph even with photo editing! The 1st pic is accurate as far as color, the 2nd pic is too pale and next one is too bright (taken at night). 

But, I wanted to show you the beautiful binding sewn using my Juki 2010Q. I just folded the binding over by hand (no pins) and sewed it down.  No balking, no revving, just smooth durable stitching! With a little more practice I'll catch the ditch in the back, but it's consistent and I'm thrilled with how quickly I can finish these off.

Juki calls this foot a Compensating Foot. In the manual all that is written about this foot is "It is convenient to sew material end straight." LOL! I call it a Fantastic Foot to Attach Binding With.  

This is Animal Pairs. I posted about my challenges trying fusible batting on it HERE.

And I have V 2.0 of my blog button. I'm liking this one better so I guess my V 1.0 mistake was a good one! I'm looking forward to using this the next time my Inner Perfectionist shows up.

If you haven't entered my giveaway yet for a $25 gift certificate to The Fat Quarter Shop click HERE. I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday@Freshly Pieced, Fabric Tuesday@Quilt Story and a new blog I found yesterday called Such a Sew and Sew. Click on the button below to peek at other January Finishes.

Game ON!

Front Side

Back Side

I'm on my way!

Thanks so much to Lynne at Never too hot to stitch! for sending me the link to this tutorial at Ellison Lane Quilts about making buttons using PicMonkey! I see more PicMonkey play time in my future.

OOPS - This is TOO funny!  After looking at this button umpteen times I just now realized I have my quote wrong - it should read Unfinished Perfectly. Version 2.0 tomorrow...

If you missed my post yesterday click HERE for a chance to win a $25 gift certificate to The Fat Quarter Shop. I'm linking up to Freemotion by the River.

Making Headway on Imperfect

In my Thursday Thoughts post last week I mentioned my new mantra "Finished imperfectly is better than unfinished perfectly". If I knew how to make a blog button I'd make one! I think I'm going to need it...

Imperfect Test Case #1:

Thursday night I pulled out my Valentine's Day Table Runner UFO, assessed where it had been left and quickly finished piecing the heart section. I gave it a good press and added the background fabric border and the pink border. 

After easy sewing and a quick press I laid it out on my table to admire it. Yikes! How many waves can you count? I pressed it again and just made it worse so I set it aside (my normal reaction to imperfect!). At least I didn't stuff it into the garbage like I used to - thanks again Mom for all of those projects you rescued for me!

On the Threadbias board you can flag a project as "being in distress" so I uploaded my pics yesterday and asked for advice. I quickly received several answers and one of them gave me an "A-ha Moment" with the mention of uneven feed. 

I have sewed on my Pfaff for 10+ years. The IDT (built in walking foot) has taught me to rarely pin, rarely measure and I NEVER have waves. And, to make it even worse I just take it for granted! To get the same results on my Juki 2010Q I must pin and must measure my borders. Lesson learned along with a renewed wave of love for my Pfaff.  

Regarding imperfect... I can't live with this! I've started in with the seam ripper and will finish the piecing on my Pfaff.

Imperfect Test Case #2:

Friday night I went downstairs to pull batting for another Warm Wishes quilt and found I was out of Warm & White. But, I had read a blog about fusible batting that day which had reminded me that I had some June Tailor laying around that I'd bought on sale a while back. Let's try it!

The quilt top fused perfectly and I was pretty darn excited thinking I have 2 large bags to use up. The backing didn't fuse quite so well so I added some pins around the edges and scattered across the middle. Again, nothing unusual. I started to quilt it and the top looked fantastic! I peeked at the back. EEK! I frogged one row and tried it again with the same result. 

By this time I was frustrated and fighting my natural urge to set it aside. I forced myself to just keep going and finish the vertical grid. I knew going horizontal with anything would be a total disaster. Then inspiration... how about doing some walking foot wavy lines down the middle of the blocks? And, how about just making them random? How bad can it be?

As it turns not... THIS is imperfect that I CAN live with! I think after washing it will be even better. I did purposely sew one tuck along the left side to gather some fullness and that's just the way it's going to stay. I see that I have the animals upside down in my pic - how fitting is that?  But, look at the pretty top!

I see more walking foot curves in my future!  Fast, easy and fun. And, I'm batting .500 on "Finished imperfectly is better than unfinished perfectly". That's a whole lot better than having 2 projects stuffed in the garbage!