Friday, September 7, 2012

OOOOoooops!

I was really pleased to receive a phonecall early this morning from a customer, thanking me for quilting her quilt and saying how wonderful the  quilting design was.  I thought I had taken more photos of the quilt but the only one I have tells a different story.  The quilt was all asian fabrics and I used a Glide thread called Cleopatra that looks gold in colour.  I quilted it with a Clamshell desgin using long boards on the back of my machine.  Because I was standing at the back I am not constantly looking at the front of the quilt.  So it  happened that I stitched through one of my flower head pins, that I was using to baste the quilt.  Changed the needle etc and complacency set in again and I stitched through a second one before I finished the quilt!  But she loved it and that is all that matters.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

My machine is Bliss

 I updated my longarm machine earlier this year as I wanted to get Quilt Glide and Bliss.  These were both new features that APQS came out with after I purchased my first machine.

I am very happy that I made this purchase. I still have my old machine for sale but it is sitting unused  to the side of my family room.

These two quilts were quilted without using any rulers.  The 9 patch to the right I did mark where the straight lines were going to go with a Frixion pen.  When I quilted it I did not use any of the chanel locks or even a ruler.  My machine moves wonderfully.  All the smaller 9 patches in the outer backgrounds were filled with tiny fillers using the Quilt glide.
The other quilt is for a friend's daughter's wedding, so I won't show the front.  The outer curved border is 10" wide and all of those curves are freehand.  I marked the initial curve with soap, as it had a black background, and that was the only markings. The rest of the sitiching follows the piecing or eyeballed.  Again no rulers.  some of the straight lines are on the diagonal and no problems with them being straight!
I love my Bliss and my machine!