Conquering fear

The hardest thing about my Handi Quilter is learning how to do custom quilting with it. I had to face the fear of failure to be able to quilt more beautifully than I can free-motion. I just finished my first big project (a customer quilt...yikes!) and I'm happy to share it with you. I'm sure to look back from the future and groan at the mistakes and whoopsies. There was some picking out, but mostly, things went as they should. It took hours of scavenging through the many digital quilting sites to find designs that I thought would look good and were in keeping with the style of quilt. Getting the designs loaded properly and stitched out in the various spaces seemed to take forever! There were a few deletings and re-loadings, but I soldiered on and finished it in four long sessions.

The beautiful quilt. Huge and beautiful.

Some of the quilting. There is a design in the HSTs, but it hard to see. I used Glide thread in Military Gold.

All that searching for just the right design for the center, and you can't see it.

Live and learn.

A look at the back. If I can overcome my hatred of ruler work, I will next try stitching ditches... I used Magnaglide Gold in the bobbin.

My thanks to my friend Gail for trusting her quilt to an amateur.

Easier project tomorrow!!

My new schedule...I love it!

 I am all better from the sickness we had, and it feels good! I started my new quilting schedule after finishing the last edge-to-edge, starting at 10:00 and quitting at 4 or 5. That gives me some time to rest before making dinner, and the hand sewing later in the evening. I will be sewing for myself every other day, and quilting the other days. So far, so good.

I started the week making this pattern from one of the Villa Rosa cards. I like these. They are easy and the directions and photos are wonderful. I had a bunch of leftover scrap pieces from another quilt I made, and carefully cut them to get as many pieces as I could for the quilt. It came out pretty and I'm pleased with it. It will go to Family Connection.

The pattern card

Beginning the piecing. on the design wall

I also added side borders to make it wider.

All finished!

Chevron quilting

Backing and binding from my stash, too.

I had three custom quilts left inn the line, and I want to get them done and not take any more for a while.

This is a vintage top that the customer wanted quilted with sailboats in the alternate blocks.

Here it is, (not trimmed yet). It took two days to do the simple looking quilting.

Sailboats in the alternate blocks.

The sailboat pieced blocks were stitched near the ditch and waves added below them.

The back had a strip of boats inset in it. Nice touch!

I finished my row-by-row for the guild tutorial. I like it very much. I plan to make the quilt- along one scrappy.

I used the leftover fabric for a piano key border.

The quilting is done with Splat, one of my favorite designs.

The back is a cotton sheet with an inset strip of Kaffe fabric to make it big enough.

Mr Wazoo hung up my Christmas gift from my son and his wife. Susan's Quilting Room.

It looks pretty snazzy against the light wall!

I just decided to add this project to the post even though it isn't finished. I made the quilt yesterday from another Villa Rosa card from a pack of fabric samples. They were different sizes, all stapled together like a book. The black fabric is left over from a backing of another project I made years ago. Everything freebies! The back is from my stash.

Mr Wazoo didn't want to hold it up, but he acquiesced in the end.

Grumbling, but compliant.

The panto is Malachite. 

Here you can see the backing and the binding. If you haven't tried the clips for binding, you should! They're a game changer.

Every morning, Mr W makes his oatmeal. For some mysterious reason, Penny growls and barks at him while he cooks. She really gets going when he stirs it with a wooden spoon. From the kitchen, he only sees the top of her head and her beady eyeballs. She watches me make supper the same way, but without barking. Whatever it is that oatmeal does to her makes for some fun early morning theater!

That's it for this week at the funny. farm. I'm off to the studio!