January doGood Stitches blocks

I love the blocks for this month's doGood Stitches bee. Ivete's Waves of Strips tutorial was really easy to follow and I love that you get two blocks out of the deal. I'm not sure how well I executed them though. 

I actually made some on Jan 1st and then decided I needed to do another set because the waves didn't look like they were going to line up very well.

Jan 1st

Jan 28th

I don't think there was any improvement from my Jan 1st blocks & my Jan 28th blocks...Hopefully they'll work for Ivete and if they don't I let her know I'd be willing to make another batch (3rd times the charm?).
Really looking forward to seeing how the finished quilt turns out. :)

Baby quilt re-do

Woot! Post #100! Here's to at least 100 more ;)

So I need to get starting quilting on my new long arm and I've got several quilt tops that I've finished. However I would like to start out on something that can't be ruined by mediocre quilting. Enter the very first quilt I ever made...

I actually made two of the exact same quilt 10 (ten!) years ago. One was made with primary colors and the other was made with pastels. I was making it for my soon to arrive nephew. The plan was that it would be a double sided quilt. One side would be the primary colors and the other would be pastels. Well the two quilt tops ended up being different sizes since I didn't know anything about piecing or squaring up blocks etc etc.
So I finished up the primary colored one and gave it as a gift to my nephew and decided to keep the pastel one handy in the hopes that he would have a sister one day. Only 8 (yes eight!) years later my adorable niece made her arrival and I amazingly found & poorly finished her quilt. This was all before I caught a quilting bug that started this blog. I only quilted in the ditch around the borders and called it good (or at least good enough).

Once I got the crazy idea to get a long arm and try my hand actual quilting I knew that I wanted to re-do the quilting on my niece's quilt. I've already ripped out the quilting stitches & removed the backing. I felt that the borders looked a bit skimpy so I dove into my crawl space to see if I had the crazy good luck to have saved the leftover fabric....and I did:

The pale green feels almost like cardboard. I've give these a wash,  cut out pieces for the new borders and hopefully have enough left to piece a back.  Looking forward to quilting this one up...I've already got ideas on how I want to quilt it. Hopefully it'll turn out looking as good in real life as it's looking in my head.

HST Blocks finally completed!

Around August I kind of got outta the groove of making the Half-Square Triangle blocks and slacked off for the rest of the year. I got a burst of energy after the start of the New Year and decided to knock these out.

August

September

October

November

December

I'm really looking forward to finishing up the quilt and plan on using it as my first long arm quilting project of the year. So excited! I've already got ideas of what I'm going to do...hope it turns out as good as I'm picturing it in my head...we shall see. :)

A new venture

This photo might be a bit dizzying but it's hard to take a picture of something that is twelve feet long in a room that is only fifteen feet long. 

This is Daisy....as in 'Driving Miss Daisy'. I didn't have the honor of naming her, but I thought it was pretty cute, so we're keeping it. :)

My very own long arm quilting machine. It's an A1 Elite and is only 8 years old. We've been getting to know each other since October. She had been looking for a home since March and had been dismantled hanging out in a garage. I've been learning a lot while putting her back together and getting her to run smoothly. Getting the tension right, straightening the leaders and figuring out why I keep shredding thread. Now I just need to get some practice in before I start quilting my quilts. Not quite confident enough to practice on the quilts I've made just yet. 

My ultimate goal will be to start a long arm quilting business. I really love Angela Walters and Jenny Pedigo and am going to aspire to be as accomplished as they are. Their style is one I hope to emulate.