Quilting Struggles but I Finished!

Okay, so I have never had so many troubles quilting a quilt.  I don't know what the deal was.  My thread just get breaking, constantly!!  It drove me nuts and so I decided to work on the quilt with the swirls, and that worked perfect.  So I thought, maybe my adjusting the tension had helped and started back on this again and AGGGHHH!  The thread started breaking again.  I just didn't get it.  But I perceived.  In the end, I decided that it must have just been a bad spool of thread.  Does that happen??  Has anyone else had this.  It was frustrating to no end.

But I kept plugging away, rethreading like crazy and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And then wham, it was done.  My Chubby Stars in Fall.  Thanks again Tracey for this amazing quilt-a-long.  This pattern was amazing.  So inventive and I just love the little 1" squares.

So here are some pictures with some of my thoughts about this quilt.

I love the scrappy binding!  Can you believe those chain squares are only 1 inch.   They are so cute and petite.

I pieced the back as well.  Don't you just love the way the leaves pop out in circles on the back.  That was an added bonus that I didn't plan but was really happy with.

I love the way the leaves turned out.  I am not so happy with the way the points of the stars turned out.  It looks like it would be so easy to just draw and arched triangle in a triangle but it was a little harder than I thought, it didn't help that my thread broke at least 3 times per blocks.  Ah well, at least the washing and drying helped to hide it a bit.

I really wanted the chain to kind of stand out so I decided to try pebbling on just the brown hoping that would create the desired effect.  It did, and I have to say, I love the look of it.  However, I haven't decided if I really like pebbling.   I think I will try again sometime when I am not having thread issues and then make a final decision if I like doing it or not.  But the fact that I love the look will probably have some sway on my decision :)

And here it is ready to go.  I have placed this in my Etsy shop.  All in all, I am pretty excited about the way this quilt turned out.

A New Free Motion Design

So I am really going all out on the free motion lately.  Here is my newest design attempt.  I think I am going to call it swirly.  Oh, and yes, that is a sneak peak of a little "baking" project for November.  Yup, you are going to have to wait a while to see it in full :)

In Need of Moda Pre-Cuts

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"Taggy" to Match and Exciting News

So at the end of August my dear sweet friend had her fourth little girl.  You might remember her from my Snuggly Squares Baby Quilt Tutorial.  Here she is in all of her adorable glory!

About a month before she was born I made this quilt for her mother and gave it to her then so should could have it hanging over her crib when her little bundle of joy arrived.

I found this quilting idea on Oh Fransson and I love it!!

So this afternoon was her baby shower. It was wonderful, good friends, and good food.  I really didn't want to go empty handed as I had already given my gift 2 months ago so I thought about what I could do.  This is what I came up with.  A cute little "Taggy".  It matches her quilt.  How cute is that???

Okay, So ready for the exciting news!!  Well it is for me at least.  When I got home from the baby shower I had an email from the Moda Bake Shop that they are having a booth in the Houston Quilt Festival and would love to display my Snuggly Squares Baby Quilt.  Ahhhhh!!  I am so excited!!  I want to fly to Houston just so I can see one of my quilts among such amazing other quilts made by quilting legends!!  If you happen to be in Houston for this event and see my quilt, could you snap a picture for me.  Thanks!! :)

First's in Free Motion

So today I tried some new techniques into my limited free motion abilities.

First, using stencils to quilt in pictures.  I really love these leaves!!  I used my birthday present (a slice) to make the stencils.  When I have more time to play  with my great new little machine, I will post about what it can do.

Second, I finally tried pebbling.  It isn't perfect but this is my first square.  It takes a little more time than normal stippling so I will be working on the remaining 12 blocks for a bit.  But I am sure it will be better with each square.