Quilt Before I Forget!

Like many creatives - I am happiest when I am doing at least two things at once to maximize my time.

Do you find yourself in the same boat?

When I decided to remove the blue outer border from New River Star (The blue & chartreuse number.) and replace it with another round of 80+ more flying geese, it put a wrinkle in my plan to keep on quilting with the new IntelliQuilter so I wouldn't forget what I learned just last week.

I am not a "one and done and know it all" kind of girl.

The last top finish of 2022 has been called "Death by Triangles" from under my breath as I continued to work on it, wondering why the heck I decided making this quilt was a good idea in the first place.

Inspired by an antique quilt - I dove in.  

How hard could it be?  It just one unit!

Needless to say it took 6 months to force myself to piece it all in between other more fun things.

All 3,600 triangles!

And then there was the time where I discovered a bag of rotting onions beneath the blocks from the last retreat of the year at Quiltville Inn because the bag came home, sat for a couple weeks (I was gone to Florida, remember?) 

And yes - while pressing yesterday, there was the slightest-faintest oniony aroma.  Sheesh.  LOL!

But I digress.  Knowing I would be spending time cutting out flying geese for the New River Star, I thought - why not load a quilt so I can keep my learning going, while cutting on the side.

Sounds rational, doesn't it?

First things first.  Set the machine to a bit longer stitch and take a victory lap around the outside edge of the quilt just shy of 1/4'' from the edge to keep all of those seams from popping open and to minimize any stretch during the quilting process. 

I like to stay-stitch my tops face down and wrong side up so I can keep all of those seams from flipping the wrong way.

But what about a backing?

This top has such funky scraps and odd pairings that I wanted something fun for the back, but I also wanted to continue on my "Let it go!" endeavor of piecing backs from yardage obtained who knows where. Or why.

How about some cute pigs from 1993??  

And to keep with the theme - 

This old "When Pigs Fly!" Hoffman print with no date.

This guy just makes me smile!

Not wanting just a center seam with blue on one side and pink on the other, and not wanting a wide panel of one or the other in the center flanked by two narrow panels, I cut both in half and alternated them.  Works for me!

I love that this is going to leave someone wondering about 40 years from now just what I was thinking.

"That Aunt Bonnie was sure a nut job, wasn't she?"

Fun and quirky tops deserve fun and quirky backs.

Getting my quilting on!

And this time I didn't choose a design that was tricky to fit in between the rails!  It takes a bit to learn a new system, and this one just as a bit different parameters than the old one, so it's going to take me a while to get it all down pat.

It feels like I'm driving someone else's car and the heat and fan knobs are in a different place.  The volume button for the stereo isn't where it usually is either.

That's as close to an analogy as I can get!

Cruisin'!

Because I chose a design that was not as tall, and had the room to quilt two rows before advancing the quilt, I stitched them continuously for the FIRST TIME!  

That means that the machine quilted left to right, made a U-turn and came back right to left back to the side I started at.  WOW!

That means half the realign and set up time between rows.  Fantastic.  

My old CompuQuilter would only stitch right to left, and you had to set it for each and every row.

I'm loving this!

I also love that hedgehog.

I made it about half-way before it was time to come home and start dinner.  It was so tempting just to do one more double-pass!

And yes - this did get done.

Just check out Lola watching over everything like a princess with her pencil-cup crown.

 

Flying geese ready to sew this weekend.

On my way out the door -

If you are a long arm quilter with a studio cat, you may have fought with the cat deciding to turn the partially quilted quilt in to a cat hammock.

I use a plastic rug runner pokey-side-up to deter anyone taking up residence on top of the quilt.

You may get the stink eye from the studio cat, but your quilt will not have a saggy spot when you return to it the next morning.

So many guesses!

And some quick finishes!

You know what tomorrow is, and I can hardly wait.  The colors, designs, jumping off spaces to "go your own way" make me SO super happy!

Tomorrow.  Part Seven is tomorrow.

That means after my eye appointment this morning I'll be busy with some finishing touches and getting everything ready for our next units.

Martha is driving me to Boone for my appointment with a new doc, and since they'll likely dilate me we'll make a day of it.  Lunch out, eye doc appt, maybe some antique mall wandering or some other shopping.

What do you have in store for your own Thursday, today?

Quiltville Quote of the Day -

It's a new year. Turn the page.

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Watch where your energy is being used.

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Be discerning of who and what you give it to.

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Have a great day, everyone!