Monogram Shmonogram

So I just finished monogramming Tim & Carol's quilt and it turned out just fine. I wanted to make the "B" bigger, but I couldn't see how, since the "T" and "C" couldn't get any smaller and it sure looked like too much overlapping going on to make it bigger. I was afraid to try.

Monster Quilt

I finally finished the top of the the giant quilt that I'm making for my brother's wedding. I turned out pretty well, I think. Its still very different for me, but I think its growing on me. I want to put their monogram in the center of one of the corner blocks, but other than that, its finished. I'll have to wait until I get to Mom and Dad's to get it basted. I don't know what sort of fabric to use for the back, either. Plain white seems boring, but its usually my preference. I'll have to go shopping, I guess.

Monograms and More

I bought a set of monogram designs on eBay on Sunday and they were in yesterday's mail. I played with them on a piece of scrap fabric, but then I just had to try them out, so I started to put it on the back of my green and white quilt. I had done the first initial and started the next, when I went out to the kitchen to grab a drink. When I came back into the living room, my husband said, there's something wrong with your machine. I ran over and the needle had come loose (which it has done before!) and stuck in the fabric and of course, the machine kept going and ripped a nice hole in the back of my quilt. I was so angry. He was sitting right there - surely he heard it fall out and start to rip! That's what I get for walking away. This machine is pissing me off a bit with the needle randomly falling out, but I'm not sure what to do about it. The needle is up in the slot the whole way up and the screw is as tight as I can get it with my fingers. I have never had it fall out of my other machine. This one, however, it has fallen out of half a dozen times. Anyway. I was able to get it to finish the monogram, although it is imperfect. I thought I could go buy a small patch to put on the back of the letter that ripped. OTHER THAN THAT, it turned out rather well. This is the picture.

Simpler Designs

So I'm still wrestling with the design of the embroidering on the green and white quilt. I found this design somewhere online for free a couple weeks ago. Its a bit bigger than what I had (its about 5" and my hoop is only 5 x 7) and its as big as I can get. I thought maybe the simpler design was better.

Embroidery & White Spaces

Today I bought an embroidery design & downloaded it this afternoon after consulting with my husband to get his approval (mustn't get anything he doesn't like, you know). He didn't like the first design I had, since he said it was boring. We both don't want any cutesy hearts. So we settled on a celtic type design. Its smaller than I thought, though. I hooped up the section of the quilt and I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked. I didn't use stabilizer. I don't know if you should or not, but it worked without it. This is how it turned out.

Now I don't know what to do. I think perhaps it ought to be filled in a bit, but I'm not sure exactly how. I'm not a great free motion quilter. Eek. It actually only needs a few lines of echoing going on, I think. I'm afraid to attempt it. Big chicken.

New Venture

So this is it. Its very different. I'm still not sure what I think of it.

This is actually sideways. I ran out of green squares, so its not finished. It will be 8 blocks wide by 9 blocks tall. It should be about 96" x 108" when done. Whaddya think?

Film Developed

I just got my roll of film back from Christmas and I was excited because it had a good picture of the quilt I made for my sister on it. It was just not coming out very clearly in the apartment with a digital camera.

This it. All finished and cleaned up. Ah. Now I want it back.

Another Quilt

I've started another quilt. I know, I know, I have several quilts not finished or whatever, but my brother got engaged over Thanksgiving and has plans for an August wedding. I thought it appropriate to make him a quilt. I have no idea what their tastes might be, so I've decided on a design that I've been contemplating for awhile. Not sure what I think of it, but I'm intrigued. I bought the fabric yesterday for half of it and had to go to another store to get the other half today. So now I'm ironing and starching to get ready to cut it up. This is the design. The colors are a bit off, but I'm sure I'll have the top pieced to show you the actual quilt shortly. These are not exactly the colors - this looks rather neon. The actual colors are periwinkle & celery.

Disturbing News

I was at my nearest JoAnns store today to pick up some quilting thread and there was a note posted on the cash register that the store would be closing in March. Stink, stink, stink!

Now, I'm not in love with JoAnns. In many ways they suck, but, they are still necessary! One can't make every quilt with $9/yard fabric. And where else do you wait for thread to go on 50% off sale before you stock up? But this is my JoAnns. The one that is just so close. Its not as if there aren't any others around, its just that it takes at least 20 minutes with traffic to get to any of them. What other store would I dare roll out of bed, put on a hat and a little makeup and sneak in when it opens to get whatever fabric I need that is on sale before all the crazy ladies come and make it not worth standing in line for?

Embroidery & Quilting

I have no good way to baste quilts here, so when I had to make a trip to my parent's house this past weekend, of course, I bundled up all of the necessary quilt supplies and make a quick trip to JoAnns to pick up my batting and backing fabric. I was in a hurry and I still wanted to use my 40% off coupons on both items, so I ended up picking up just the fabric and then stopping in on Saturday to pick up the batting.

So late on Saturday night, I watched HGTV with my pal, Harley (my parents dog, the sweetest little chihuahua ever) and basted my green & white quilt. I went back home on Sunday morning and after my husband went to work, spent the evening quilting the basic grid lines. Now to figure out how to quilt it - the usual dilemma.

I think that I will do diagonals both directions to cut across all the nine patches and then, I was thinking, perhaps I could use my new machine to embroider a medallion of some sort in all the white "circles" or whatever they're called. Could be neat. I'm rather excited, since i have no idea how I would do that without doing the embroidery. I don't do circles yet. At least not that complicated and certainly not that many times! So, obsessed as I normally am, I spent hours on the internet trying to locate the single perfect medallion embroidery design to download. I haven't found it yet. Grr. Too many quilting designs are in packs and there are quilt "blocks" out the wazoo. I just want one little medallion thats not too sparse, but definitely not too busy. It has to balance with the density of the rest of the quilting. Sheesh. There is one that came programmed on my machine, but it seems too simple.

Wish me luck. I need to get back to my real job.

My new project

I've finished my sister's quilt and I recently finished my Amadeus quilt (I'm adding a few finishing touches and I'll post the finished pics later). So, I've been thinking about making a quilt with green fabric. I've kinda had a love-hate relationship with green, but apple green has been catching my eye lately. I went to JoAnns the other day to see if I could find some green fabric that I liked. I settled on a celery green that I would think of a sage green.

I bought the fabric on Saturday morning and just finished the top a few minutes ago. How ridiculous am I? Can you tell I haven't done much of anything else the last couple days? What can I say - it was a holiday and my husband was working.

My new embroidery machine

So, of course, since I had a new embroidery machine, I had to use it for last-minute Christmas gifts for my neices, Shelby & Colesy. I made them each a pillow and put their monogram on it and a long-sleeve t-shirt. Cute, huh?

Finally Finished!

So I haven't posted in awhile, but I've been really busy. Let me show you what I've been up to. I finally finished my sister's quilt. My sewing machine broke down a couple weeks before Christmas and I found a shop who would send it in for repair. The only problem was that it they only send them out on Thursdays and return them on the following Thursday. So we went over on the next Thursday morning to drop it off and discovered that we had already missed the repair guy. So it would take two weeks to get it back (December 29th). Grr.

While we were there, however, we found an embroidery machine on sale. It was a Brother Innovus 1000. I drooled, but we left. My husband offered to buy it for my Christmas gift. I was feeling seriously tempted and seriously guilty for spending so much money on a machine. Well, he bought it for me anyway one week before Christmas. I spent the entire day on December 18th quilting her quilt and then I spent the rest of the week hand-sewing the binding to it. I finished it on Dec 23rd and took it with me to my parents on Christmas Day so I could wash it before wrapping it up to give it to Suzie. Sheesh. Now I feel like I've given away a child, since I've been working on this project for the entire year.