Deciding what to stitch

I have finished the quilt for my folks and am very pleased with how it turned out.
Before I share the finished 'masterpiece'. I wanted to chronicle how I came up with the final quilting design.

My idea

 I was really stumped on what to do for the center diamonds. So I went to the Machine Quilter's Resource forum and asked for design help. I got some really great feedback, especially from a really nice lady named Peggy. She provided the sketch below:

Peggy Holt's idea

I was blown away! Incredible. I loved her introduction of curves, it absolutely transformed the overall design.

So now my big dilemma was my ability to execute various elements. This is only the 3rd quilt I've ever quilted (on a long arm or otherwise).

In progress, stitchin in the ditch

I started out with all the stitching in the ditch and straight line quilting and then went through and did a meander around the kokopelli's. Annoyingly I found that I could stitch decently moving from left to right on the long arm but as soon as I tried to move from right to left the thread would start shredding.
Instead of investigating the issue I just plowed forward always making sure I was moving from left to right. Daisy will be getting a thorough spa cleaning before the next project is loaded and hopefully I can fix the problem of shredding thread.

Next post...the finished quilt (woot!).

Up next for finishing - Mom & Dad's quilt

I don't have a large enough space to lay out the quilt top in order to take a decent photo...but here it is ready for quilting.

So I'm hoping to start quilting this weekend and we'll see how long it takes for me to finish. :)

Make it Right Challenge - Jacket complete!

This jacket turned out pretty dang well. I'm so thrilled that I actually finished it! I'm really good at starting to sew clothes and then giving up when things get too difficult or I make a mistake. I took my time and if I started to get frustrated I simply put it down and came back to it the next day. It was awesome...and only slightly obsessive. ;)

I was going to try to make my own pattern but I just don't have the skills for that so I chose a basic jacket pattern from Vogue, V7975. I altered the sleeves so they were shorter and changed the neckline to more of a V-neck and didn't bother with a lining.

I pre-washed all the fabrics first, mainly because I somehow got a spot of oil on the panel and had to get that out so it wouldn't be a problem since I knew I needed every scrap of the panel in order to complete my project. Pinterest to the rescue...little dot of Dawn liquid soap on the oil spot and it washed right out.
I actually washed the batting too because I wanted to be able to wash the finished jacket without having to worry about crazy shrinking/wrinkles.

I split the panel up into 4 sections. 1 section for the back, 1 section for the side fronts & backs, and the remaining 2 sections for the sleeves. I did have to do some piecing to each section in order to make them big enough to cut the pattern pieces out of. I don't think you can really tell that I pieced it though by looking at it. Which is good & bad....good that it blends in, bad that it took a bit of time with no real addition to the overall look. C'est la vie. 

After getting each section pieced large enough to accommodate all the pattern pieces I quilted them on my long arm.  The under arm sections in the bright citron color I straight stitched on my regular sewing machine with a walking foot. I was really impressed with the Aurifil thread I used because I was able to use it on both my long arm & my sewing machine with no issues...and I still have a ton of it left. I think I have at least half a spool left and that's after a lot of piecing, quilting & sewing...very impressed. 

I read a Threads article that was really helpful in choosing the right batting for quilted garments. I decided to use Quilters Dream Wool because I wanted the jacket to have some structure to it.

So now I'll enter it in the Make it Right Challenge and cross my fingers. :)

Projects stats:
Fabric used: 1 Angela Walter's Right Angle Panel, Art Gallery Pure Elements in Lemonade, Mystic Gray, Light Gray, Moonstone, Midnight, Tile Blue
Pattern: Vogue 7975 - altered
Batting: Quilter's Dream Wool
Thread: Aurifil Mako 50/2 color #2600