June One Monthly Goal Finish

I clearly set my One Monthly Goal way too low this month. I had hoped to finish quilting a quilt on my new long arm. I actually achieved that goal just a few days into the month.

Then I went on to finish four more quilts in June!

I am delighted with how many quilts I've gotten finished. It feels good to finally reduce my number of flimsies.

Thanks to Patti for hosting the One Monthly Goal challenge.

Tuesday ToDo #40

 Last week I said I would like to finish binding the Scrappy Log Cabin quilt, and I finished that last Friday.

I also wanted to continue working on my RSC projects and get caught back up this month. I've been partially successful. I finished most of the Arlington Square and Bloom blocks and I got started on the green stained glass blocks but then our weather turned so hot that I didn't want to run the iron all day so I set that project aside for now.

I also wanted to finish quilting my Rhododendron Trail quilt. The quilting has been finished, but I must admit, I did not do it. My husband did. My husband⏤who has never expressed any interest in my quilting endeavors before I got the long arm⏤is suddenly interested in playing with my ProStitcher computer. I worked with him to choose the stitching designs and then he finished quilting the entire quilt while I sewed with my friend who was visiting for a week.

I also got a little distracted this week with a small scrappy project. Our friend in town wanted to sew while she was here so I ended up working on something that was easy to cut out and work on. I found this Groovy Garden fabric on clearance and I thought it would be fun to use these colors for another Broken Bricks pattern scrappy quilt.

For next week, I would like to:

1. Finish the borders on this Broken Bricks scrappy quilt.
2. Bind the Rhododendron Trail quilt.
3. Get back to working on my stained glass blocks.
4. I also put my Sewcialites quilt on the long arm frame and I'm hoping we'll make progress on it this week. I told my husband he could design the quilting however he wanted to. I believe he is planning to put a different block design on every square.

Thanks to Linda for hosting Tuesday ToDo.

Another Finish Scrappy Log Cabin

The purple 4-patches actually started out as a leader-ender project but by the time I had a big pile of them I had to figure out what to do with them and I came up with this project. I wished I had done a little more planning in my light-dark color arrangement, but overall I'm happy with the project.

This was our first attempt at custom quilting and it went well. I am surprised by how much my husband is enjoying playing with my long arm. Between the two of us, we're getting through these flimsies fairly quickly. 

I'm linking up with 

Brag About Your Beauties, 

Finished or Not Friday, 

Off the Wall Friday,

Peacock Party and 

TGI Finished Friday.

Meadow Flowers Lap Quilt Finished!

Meadow Flowers is finished! This was my first attempt at English Paper Piecing. I finished the flimsy nearly a year ago so I am pleased to finally have it finished. Overall, I am happy with how it turned out.

Though, to be honest, I am not enamored with these pantographs (quilting patterns). I had planned to use something more flowery, but the set I bought ended up being way too big and I wasn't going to spend yet more money for just this little lap quilt. Pro-Stitcher came with quite a few patterns so I found some that would work. I assume I'll eventually have a pretty good collection of quilting patterns, but since I just got started, I don't have many yet.

As for my other Tuesday tasks, I finished cutting out a leader-ender project. And I am in the process of working on my blocks for RSC. I finished the blocks for one of the projects, but I still need to finish them for two others. 

For next week, I would like to finish the following tasks:

1. Finish binding the Scrappy Log Cabin quilt.
2. Continue work on my RSC projects. I would like to get caught back up this month.
3. Now that my Rhododendron Trail quilt is on the frame, I'd like to work on getting that quilted. It would be nice if I could finish it this week, but I don't mind taking my time.

Thanks to Linda for hosting Tuesday ToDo.

June Friday Night Sew In

I got started a little early for June's Friday Night Sew In. I'd chosen a task to get caught up on my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks because I missed them the last two months when I was busy with house projects. I had intended to spend all evening on them, but after a couple of hours I got thrown into cleaning mode. My sewing room is a disaster and it was getting hard to work in there. It would be nice to have that room usable again so I can focus on my projects and not looking for things.

Anyway, I got started on my blocks for the Arlington Square quilt. I have been intentionally using uglies because I want this to be a really scrappy quilt and I think they give character. =) I may have to start cutting white fabric off of yardage because I've gone through nearly all my white scraps with all my recent scrap projects. 

This is the design of the finished quilt. I may end up doing the sashing during next year's RSC.

I'm linking up with Friday Night Sew-In and Finished or Not Friday. 

I hope you all have a good weekend. I'll likely spend it cleaning my sewing room.

Our First Custom Quilt

My husband has also become excited about playing with my new long arm and he expressed an interest in experimenting with doing a custom quilting job. To be honest, I gave him what I thought was my ugliest scrap quilt to play with because I figured I wouldn't be upset if it didn't go well.

I definitely wouldn't have tried something this advanced without his encouragement/badgering. This video was particularly helpful. We spent all weekend on it and I'm really happy about how much we learned.

Now I'm super excited and planning my next project.

I pretty much failed on my last Tuesday ToDo list so I'm just gonna start over from here. 

1.   During the next week, I am going to custom quilt my Meadow Flowers quilt. 

2.   I'd like to go back in time and catch up on my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects for the past two months; I missed pink and green because I was busy down in the basement. And I'd like to finish this month's color too; I think it's blue.

3.   I'd like to cut out another leader-ender project, especially if I'll be working on more stained glass blocks.

I'm linking up with Design Wall Monday, Monday Making and Tuesday ToDo.

Three Finished Lap Quilts!

I've been saving my flimsies until I was able to take delivery on my long arm. I had another lesson on Tuesday and quilted the black/red/white lap quilt with the instructor showing me how to use Pro-Stitcher. Really, he pushed most of the buttons and I watched and took notes. It took about 2 hours.

The next day I quilted the purple/aqua/blue lap quilt by myself. It took me all day and there are a few minor issues but I can say I learned a lot. 

Then I quickly followed it up with another scrap quilt, in pink/yellow/white. This one went much more smoothly. I even let the bobbin run out so I could be sure I could back it up and restart it. This one took me about three hours, not including the two hours I spent assembling the backing.

I quilted this one with the Spring Petals pattern

Rather than keep going and let unbound quilts pile up, I decided I'd better get started finishing them. By Friday evening, I finished all three! It takes me way too long to machine sew on binding, I'll definitely need to get faster.

I obviously set my One Monthly Goal way too low. Next up, I'm going to try designing quilting with separate borders.

I'm linking up with 

Brag About Your Beauties, 

Finished or Not Friday, 

Off the Wall Friday,

Peacock Party and 

TGI Finished Friday.

My First Quilt on My Long Arm

I probably should have started practicing on just plain fabric, but I assumed it would be as easy as it was at all the lessons. Nope. I made many rookie mistakes, but I finally got quilt #1 done! Between the HQ longarm and Pro-Stitcher, there is so much to learn. 

Right now I'm focusing on learning the process for edge-to-edge quilting, but I do hope to add more custom quilting skills by the end of the month.

The broken bricks pattern. Super easy scrap quilt.

The backing. I had some extra pieces to use up.

I quilted it with the Modern Geometry 3 pattern.

June One Monthly Goal

It will be no surprise to anyone that my One Monthly Goal will be to quilt a flimsy on my New Handi Quilter long arm. I've got 16 flimsies stashed in my closet and I would like to get one of them all the way finished (binding and everything).

I have a lesson scheduled for next week to refresh my memory on how to load the frame and use ProStitcher and then I will no doubt dive in full speed.

I'm linking with One Monthly Goal.