Stitching, Planning and Learning

I've been busy stitching, and working on projects. 

I finally straight line quilted my son and daughter in laws Signature Quilt, from their wedding (May 2015).  Yes, I should have gotten this done ages ago.  I made the binding, and attached it to the front of the quilt this morning.  I just need to stitch the binding down, on the back.  Hopefully, some of that will happen tonight, while watching NCIS, and the following shows.

back of Signature quilt

I don't think I'll add a label to this quilt, since it already has all of the signatures on the front. 

I need to make binding for another quilt.  Erica quilted my Happily Scrappily Irish quilt today.  I'll get it from her at quilt guild, on Thursday. 

I have been working on Half Square Triangles, too. 

HST's, ready to be stitched into blocks

These are for 2 baby quilts that I need to make.  I'm late, as usual, since both babies have been born.  I do have an excuse for one of the quilts, since he was born more than 6 weeks early.  He is still in the hospital, and will be for a while longer. 

I still have these Triangulations left to stitch.

Triangulations still to be stitched

I'll be making Bear Paw quilts (minus the Bear blocks), for these babies.

I went thru my Christmas list, to see what I still need to make.  I found that I don't have as many things to make as I thought I did (thank goodness).

I have 2 more purses to cut out and stitch.

fabric for one purse

fabric for the other purse

I also need to make a table topper. 

table topper kit

I also need to make a fleece tied blanket (no picture).

If I get the time, I need to make some placemats, too.  I've had the fabric for quite a long time now, but, haven't gotten around to making them.  We'll see how much I get done on the other projects.

Pat Sloan is doing a 'Teach Me to Machine Quilt' challenge, using her new book 

Pat Sloan's new book

 I've been wanting to work on my machine quilting skills for a while now.  About a decade ago, I took 3 different free motion quilting classes.  They were boring, and I never practiced.  Now, with encouragement from a blogging friend (thanks Deb), I'm finally going to make time to try again.

Pat Sloan suggests that we use panels to practice on.  Well, I picked up several pillow panels last weekend, for a quarter a piece.  I've spray basted them, and, I have 5 of them ready to work on.  Pat suggested using baby quilt panels, but, I'd rather start a bit smaller, and work my way up to the baby quilt panels (yes, I have a collection of those, too). 

Pat suggests that we practice for at least 10 minutes a day.  I practiced for over an hour today.

1st panel to practice on

up close, after more than an hour

back of panel, showing my work, so far

Not too bad.  So far, I've only used the walking foot, and straight line quilted.  After I finish all the straight line quilting on this pillow panel, I'll put the darning foot on and try free motion.  Frankly, free motion scares me.  I don't like the look of stippling, and, back when I took my classes, that was all they taught you. 

I have my Janome set up in the sewing room.  It's sitting on a table in the middle of the room (in the way, really), since I don't want to move my other machines, and, the table is better at supporting the quilt sandwich.  My sewing room is very hard to move around in now.

Janome 4800QC

I haven't used this machine since last Fall.  The only thing I ever use it for is some machine quilting (straight line only) at times, and sometimes for some of the special stitches it makes.  I decided to use this machine for the 'needle down' feature. 

I've been listening to an audio book while I was machine quilting.  I listened to Harry Potter #7, while machine quilting the Signature quilt, and, I've started Eragon, for while I practice machine quilting.  We have all four books, so, I shouldn't run out of listening material any time soon.

Eragon audio book

I'll be doing lots of practicing over the next few weeks.  We are suppose to finish one panel before we move on to the next one (5 panels in all, at least).  You'll be seeing if I get better or not, over the next few weeks.  I really want to get better, since I asked for a ruler and ruler foot package for Christmas. 

Wish me luck, and, if you have any suggestions or links to short machine quilting videos, please send them to me.  I'm NOT on Facebook, so, I don't know if I can watch anything there.