Desert Nine-Patch on the Frame Again!

Hi all!

Well, after the last heavy custom quilt I finished a couple of easy all-over quilted quilts for the cottage - I will post pictures of them later ;-) and then I pulled this quilt out of my closet.  This quilt was started in 2010 and the top was finished in 2011!!! It's finishing time was now.

I had put it on the frame a year ago and took it back off because I was frustrated with my quilting as I tried to emulate the computer quilting that was on the sample.  Sigh!  I should know better than to try and emulate computer quilting!  Needless to say it has sat in the closet for almost a year!

 

I took it out and decided to completely rip the quilting that had frustrated me so much!  It took some time but I think that it was really worth it!

 

I pulled out the Sew Kind of Wonderful long-arm rulers and quilted a swag and then went from there! I am so much more happy with the way that this is going!  The nine-patches pop and the quilting is adding a secondary element :-D  

I am using 40wt Glide thread in Cream for the top and pre-wound bobbins in cream as well.

Even though I am really happy that I waited until inspiration struck I think it is time for this UFO to get finished!  I always really liked this quilt and it has sat, in the back of my mind, for all those years; but, I had to wait until I had an idea.

So, what do you think?  Was a right to wait and then rip?

Ruler Foot

Well I finally gave in.  I finally bought a ruler foot for my long-arm!   I thought that I could continue to get away with compensating and moving the ruler and eye-balling it; but, I finally gave in.

I did try, a while ago, to find a foot here in Canada; but, as my fellow Canadians will know - sometimes it can be hard to find certain things here in Canada and postage, duty and taxes crossing the border can be out of the question!  For instance - one foot I was going to order was $99.00 USD and to ship the foot to Canada they were going to charge me an additional $49.00 USD!!!  Sorry.  No way.

I finally found a dealer here in Canada and ordered the foot that I need.  It was $65.00 CND and just $15.00 in shipping.  Much more reasonable!

Anyways, I thought that I would share a couple of pictures of the foot so that if you are thinking of getting one that you won't wait like I did!

 

The foot is much taller and wider than the foot that comes on the machine.

 

In this picture you can really see how much wider that foot is.  It is 1/2" wide - 1/4" away from the needle so that doing accurate ruler work will be much easier for me.

Honestly, after looking at the two feet together I cannot believe that I waited this long!  I love doing ruler work and I have been frustrated with my lack of accuracy so hopefully with this foot I will be able to fix that.

It's so funny how I can justify not getting a simple tool like this!!   My next purchase will be the Spoon (or Glide) foot I think when they come out with one for my machine :-D

How I'd better go and load something onto the frame so I can try this out!!

Metro Medallion in the Snow!

Happy New Years!

I hope that you all had an amazing holiday season!  I know that I did :-)  It was very relaxing.  We decided to have a low-key Christmas and New Years at the cottage this year and it was so nice!  But, the weather was absolutely freezing here!

I spent quite a bit of time inside, by the fire, with a cold :-P  So, what did I do?  I worked on hand turning the binding on my Sew Kind of Wonderful Metro Medallion quilt!

 

Ta Da!  All done and outside in the snow for some pictures :-D  It was so cold that the quilt didn't even get wet from the snow - it all just brushed right off!

 

A close-up of the machine quilting.  I decided to do a pretty heavily quilted custom that was very inspired by Jenny's quilting that she showed on her blog.  I loved the way that she did the swoop in the grey and thought that I would try my hand at it.  I found that it was easiest to mark the swoop instead of purely using rulers to get the spacing absolutely correct.  It only took a few minutes and the results were much better. 

I used 40 weight FilTech Glide thread in Pearl and Cool Grey 3 on the top and the pre-wound bobbins on the back.

 

Here I am peeking from behind the quilt while standing on the frozen Lake Kamaniskeg!  This picture was actually taken quite a ways out on the lake and the ice was like glass underneath all the snow!  And yes I am wearing a great big furry toque with ear-flaps - it was cold out!

So, this quilt marks my last finish of 2017!  I think it's good to end on a high note!  Did you accomplish what you had hoped you would?  I started another Sew Kind of Wonderful project and finished the top at the cottage - that will be my next blog post!  What about you?