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.

Finally ... My HQ Long Arm

I actually ordered it last June and had planned to put it down in the basement but I needed to upgrade the electrical down there because there were so few power outlets and I wasn't sure they'd ever been upgraded. After spending several weeks unsuccessfully trying to hire an electrician, I finally gave up and hired a contractor, Tim Austin, to finish the basement. 

Very many months later, we have finally finished our basement remodel. By the time it was finished, the plan had changed and we'd decided to move one of the bedroom sets down there and also set up Jeff's new computer work area. I blogged about it all over at the house blog.

Today, finally, SAVE Stores delivered and set up my new Handi Quilter Infinity Long Arm in the upstairs master bedroom! I am so excited. I really want to jump right into playing with it, but I have a few more things I need to finish before the end of the month. Instead, I will watch all the instructional videos and read the booklet that came with the machine. And I'll schedule some lessons as soon as I get the car back from the body shop.

The master bedroom is a little small for the 12' frame, so it will be a bit of a pain to walk around it. And we had to remove the closet doors so we could still squeeze into the closets. And I'll also have to move one of the bookshelves to the other side of the room to make space around the frame.

I decided to name her Hazel Quinn. I really need to cut out a pretty name tag on my Cricut.

Graceful Moments Flimsy

It's been about six weeks since I last made a sewing project list. I've primarily been spending my time working on staining the wood in the basement, which is nearly finished. I've blogged about it over at the house blog here.

We had company in town last month so I ended up packing up my mountain of fabric in the guest bedroom. I had six boxes of fabric!! Once we've finished moving around the furniture, I'll start unpacking and ironing them.

Last Friday, I had planned to participate in Friday Night With Friends, but instead, we ended up spending our older dog's last day with her. I was pretty sad over the weekend so I went and hid up in my sewing room and sewed for the weekend.

On the bright side, I finished my One Monthly Goal. These were some fabric scraps I was gifted recently and I decided to turn them into a lap quilt. I think it turned out fairly well, though I did make lots of mistakes I had to rip out and fix. I was not at my best this past weekend, but it is finished now.

My list for next time is:

1. Finish my Pink blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.
2. Figure out what quilt project to start next.
3. Start quilting all my quilt flimsies once the long arm is delivered.

I am linking up with Design Wall Monday, Tuesday ToDo and once it's available, One Monthly Goal.

April One Monthly Goal

My main monthly goal for April is to get my house furniture rearranged so I can take delivery on my new Handiquilter Infinity, but that doesn't count for this particular linkup. Once I actually take delivery, I will start churning out quilts. I have 16 flimsies stowed away and ready for quilting!

Anyway, since I needed to come up with a project I could actually finish with not a lot of free time for sewing, I decided to choose this little scrap quilt to work on.

Even with a new long arm machine to play with, I should be able to finish this little flimsy.

I'm linking up with Elm Street Quilt's April OMG linkup.

Apr Friday Night w/Friends

I started my Friday Night with Friends a bit earlier in the day; I was alternating sewing with other projects. I managed to finish nine more of my stained glass blocks!! 

I had a whole lot of chunks already assembled so when I focused on combining them to make blocks, it went fairly quickly. Most of these still need to be trimmed down to the 10½" finished size.

I'm happy, and a little surprised, that I actually managed to finish this goal. 

Now, onto next month's RSC color: Pink. I won't be making any stained glass blocks in pink; they're not needed for my plan.

Drop on by the Friday Night with Friends linkup to see what everyone else is working on.

Now I need to figure out what I want to finish during April.