TGIFF: Lazy Day College Graduation Quilt Finish + Two Christmas Finishes for Clients

 Hello, there, quilt lovers!  Happy FRIDAY!  Do y'all realize that Christmas Eve is only two weeks away?!  Hanukkah is over and done with for 2021, and Kwanzaa, Ōmisoka and New Year's Eve celebrations (and the resolutions of the new year) are sneaking up on us quickly.  This will be my last time hosting TGIFF (Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday) in 2021!  I'm looking forward to seeing what all of you have finished recently, whether it's a completely finished quilt or garment, a finished quilt top, or just a finished block.  ALL finishes count!  The link up is all the way at the bottom of today's blog post, because first I have a special finish of my own to share with you.

Alex's College Graduation Quilt

90 x 93 Lazy Day Quilt from Quilts! Quilts! Quilts! book, 3rd ed. (affiliate link)

This is my nephew Alex's college graduation quilt.  He graduated this past June, and I tried to give him cash, but he asked for a quilt instead.  💓💓💓.   

Simple Piecing, Double Batting, & Modern Curves Extended Width E2E

Of course, I wasn't able to attend his graduation in person thanks to Plague Protocol...

Big Alex Graduates from UC San Diego, June of 2021

I didn't want this to be another of my seven-year quilts, so I found this easy pattern in the book Quilts! Quilts! Quilts! by Diana McClun and Laura Nownes, 3rd ed.  (By the way, the 2nd edition of this book taught me to make my very first quilt -- I noticed the newer 3rd edition when browsing at Barnes & Noble and bought it because all of the projects have been updated to appeal to modern as well as traditional quilters, and the new projects looked like they would be great for quick gifts).

Ann's Magic Carpet Quilt + TWO NEW PROJECTS for Rebecca!

First Things First: Ann's Mesmerizing Magic Carpet Quilt

Oh my gosh, you guys -- check out the quiltaliciousness of this fabulous Magic Carpet Quilt that I completed last week for my client Ann!  Ann pieced the top using Paula Nadelstern's Duets and Poured Color fabrics from Benartex.  She followed a FREE Benartex pattern called Magic Carpet that was designed by Stephanie Sheridan specifically to promote the fabric collections, available from Benartex here.  

Modern Eccentric E2E in Variegated 40 wt YLI Cotton Thread

I quilted Ann's Magic Carpet quilt using Ann Shackelford's Modern Eccentrics E2E quilting design and I just love how it turned out -- great texture with a wonderful illusion of motion.  I feel like I really could step onto this "magic carpet" and go sailing off into the night sky.

Ann made this quilt as a wedding gift.  I think the pattern does a great job of showcasing the distinctive Paula Nadelstern fabric prints.

Giverny Kaleidoscope Quilt Finish + Big Birthday Surprises: A Bernina Q24 is Coming Next Week (APQS Millennium + IntelliQuilter For Sale)!

Today's post is a long one; I have three things to share with you.  

1. Graduation Quilt Finished Early!

First things first, my lovelies -- I put the final stitches in the binding of Anders' high school graduation quilt last night.  I finished it EARLY, y'all -- graduation isn't until Tuesday, and Quillow Sunday at church is on June 6th.  Woo hoo!!  This was my One Monthly Goal for May, and it feels good to hit the finish line with several days to spare!

70 x 90 Giverny Teleidoscope Graduation Quilt for Anders

I really love how the ombre backing fabric came out, too:

Giverny Teleidoscope Ombre Backing

I ended up doing a 1/2" finished width binding on this quilt because it seemed more proportional to the oversized kaleidoscope blocks than my usual 1/4" binding.  As for the size, it came out right at 70" x 90" before washing it, and I used 100% cotton batting so I'm bracing myself for some shrinkage to happen in that first wash.  I had intended for the quilt to be a little larger, but it will be fine.

Date Night With Jack the Ripper: A Directional Tension Thriller With a Happy Ending

Friday Night with Jack the Ripper

You should have seen the look on my husband's face when I told him I was ripping stitches out of Anders' graduation quilt.  You'd think I just told him that I fed one of our neighbors to the dog or something.  It was all there in his eyes -- shock, horror, revulsion, "how could you do this to me, to us, and to our family?!" blah blah blah.  But a quilter's gotta do what a quilter's gotta do, and sometimes you just have to put on your Big Girl panties and reach for the seam ripper.

So I finished quilting Anders' graduation quilt late on Tuesday night, but when I took it off the frame and flipped it over, I saw a couple of spots where I wasn't happy with the stitching on the back of the quilt.  I know better than to make rash decisions when I'm tired, so I walked away from the quilt and decided to come back and triage in the daylight, after a good night's sleep.  Sometimes I can pick out and restitch small sections of quilting invisibly, knotting and burying the thread tails so you'd never know any "quilt surgery" had happened there.  This was not one of those times.

Tuesday Night, When I Thought I Was Finished

Inspection on Wednesday morning revealed directional tension problems in the first two rows of quilting, about 15" across the entire top of the quilt.  

What the Heck are Directional Tension Problems?

Oh, I'm so glad you asked!  

Tuesday's To Do List: Champagne in Giverny for Son-the-Younger

Well, I hope everyone likes the champagne bubbles because we're committed to them now!  After agonizing over trying to choose the perfect design for Anders' graduation quilt for weeks now, I finally decided to show a few options to the soon-to-be-graduate himself and see what HE likes.  Anders chose this design for his quilt, Kristin's Champagne Bubbles E2E, and I started stitching it out this afternoon.

Kristin's Champagne Bubbles E2E on Kaleidoscope Quilt

I just LOVE how my IntelliQuilter can quilt out such smooth, perfect circles onto a quilt, don't you?  This is one of those quilting designs that can only be stitched out with a computerized machine.  I chose 100% Quilter's Dream Cotton batting for this quilt since Anders complains about being too hot at night -- and since he'll be attending college in South Carolina.  The thread is Glide in color Split Pea, selected because it blends into most of the lighter colored fabrics in the quilt top and is a near-perfect match to the backing fabric.

April OMG Success: Anders' Grad Quilt is a Flimsy!

It's the last day of April, and I'm crossing my big One Monthly Goal off my list in the nick of time.  I feel like that player in Sports Ball who slides into Home Plate right before whatever happens that makes him Struck Out instead of Safe.  That other dude who is dressed like a cross between a skunk and a raccoon yells SAFE -- and the crowd goes wild!!  🙌  See?  I do sort of somewhat pay attention to the Sports Ball games.  But mostly, I'm just shopping for fabric on my iPad...  

Giverny Teleidoscope is a Completed Flimsy

77 x 99 Giverny Teleidoscope is a Completed Flimsy

My Major Goal for April was to get my younger son's high school graduation quilt top, Giverny Teleidoscope, completely assembled, and I just finished that up about an hour ago.  (Those are my husband's naked toes sticking out on the right side of the photo, and my soon-to-be-graduate son Anders' gray sock clad toes sticking out on the other side).   I pressed it flat as a pancake with Mary Ellen's Best Press, and even remembered to stay stitch 1/8" from the raw edges all the way around the quilt top so it's ready to load and quilt.  

Design Wall Monday + Tuesday's To-Do List: Giverney Teleidoscope is Nearly a Flimsy

As of Sunday night, here's what Anders' high school graduation quilt looks like on my design wall:

All Nine Rows Completed!

All of my 11" kaleidoscope blocks now have their corners attached, and they are all sewn together into nine horizontal rows with their points matching up neatly at the seam lines.  Now all I need to do is to sew those rows together into a finished quilt top (or "flimsy") before I can load it onto my long arm frame for quilting.  My One (Two!) Monthly Goal(s) for April was(were) to finish piecing this kaleidoscope quilt top and to completely finish the bear paw quilt I shared a few days ago, so I think I'm going to end the month at two for two.  

Even though I had a pretty good idea what this quilt would look like with all of the pieces laid out and stuck to my design wall throughout construction, I love seeing the fuzzy design come into sharp focus as the piecing seams tidy everything up.  I am enjoying staring at this one, seeing the different shapes emerge in some areas and recede in others: triangles, Maltese crosses, curved diamonds, octagons and squares, as well as the curved orange peel design illusion that happens where the blocks come together at the corners.  I'm pleased with how this one is coming along.

Sesame Street Quilting With a Playful Floral Swirl E2E Design

Hello, hello, and happy Thursday!  Is it a "sunny day, sweeping the clouds away" where you live today?  If not, don't despair -- "I can tell you how to get, how to get to Sesame Street..."  

Seriously; by the time I finished quilting this one, I could NOT get the Sesame Street songs out of my head.  "C is for cookie, it's good enough for me. Cookie cookie cookie starts with C!"

4 inch Tumbler Quilt with Floral Swirl E2E Quilting Design

This is the second of two donation quilt tops that my mom pieced for me to quilt and donate to a local hospital pediatric patient, using the leftover Hibiscus Kona Solid background fabric from Lars's Mission Impossible graduation quilt (finished in 2019 and juried into QuiltCon Together 2021).  There was a ton of that Hibiscus purple fabric left over, and my mom kept me company in the studio while I was custom quilting Mission Impossible and she was using my AccuQuilt GO! cutter with the 4" tumbler die to cut up all of the leftover purple fabric into tumblers.  The print fabrics were pulled from my scrap bin and my stash, except for those fabulous Sesame Street prints -- I spotted those at a local quilt shop and they were a complete impulse buy.  I knew it would be great for The Charlotte Quilters Guild's Pediatric Outreach efforts.  

Oh-Ma-Goodness; My March OMG Goal Was Attained... EARLY!

 Guess what?  If a quilter spends less time writing about quilting on her blog, she can get more actual quilting progress completed in her studio!  😲.  This has been a major epiphany for me!  Stop smirking!

Giverny Teleidoscope Layout, All 63 Block Centers Complete

Okay, so my One (and only) Monthly Goal for March was to complete the remaining 53 octagonal kaleidoscope block centers for my younger son's high school graduation quilt.  I only had nine of them finished at the beginning of the month and I got the remaining 54 pieced with a week to spare.  Whew!  Note that none of the corner triangles are sewn to the blocks yet.  I spent a few hours this afternoon cutting those HSTs (half square triangles) out and arranging the blocks on my design wall until nothing was jumping out at me in an unpleasant way.  I think I like what I've got right now, but I'm planning to look at it again with fresh eyes in the morning before I start actually sewing corners onto octagons.

Giverny Taleidoscope Quilt Progress

Hello, my lovelies!  Did you miss me all week?  Since my last post, I finished quilting my bear paw quilt (and I LOVE how the graffiti quilting came out), but it's still waiting to be labeled and bound because I had to play catch-up with my son's graduation quilt.

 4 Kaleidoscope Rows Completed, 3 Rows Remaining

I was thinking that I was right on schedule to have all of the kaleidoscope centers pieced by the end of March, and then I looked at my calendar again and realized that March does not have six weeks in it, after all.  36 block centers finished, but still 27 remaining to be made on the 23rd of March...

The Supreme Yumminess of the Hand Marbled Fabrics and the Graffiti Quilting

Earlier this week, since I was all caught up with customer quilts and right on-track with the kaleidoscope blocks I'm making for Anders' high school graduation quilt, I finally -- FINALLY -- got my UFO Bear Paw quilt out of the Purgatory closet and loaded it on my frame for quilting.  I am so excited to finally be finishing this quilt for myself!  I stewed over how to quilt this one for three years, but when I discovered this digital edge-to-edge quilting design, Graffiti E2E #7, by Karlee Porter,  I knew it would be perfect for this top.  

I'm Loving Graffiti E2E #7 on my Bear Paw Quilt!

I started making my 10 1/2" bear paw blocks in May of 2014 as an experiment, chopping up Anna Maria Horner's large scale LouLou Thi print and enjoying the "blobs of paint" effect that created in my blocks, with sections of butterflies or flowers recognizable in the larger patches but not in the small triangles.  Soon afterwards, I got my hands on my first hand marbled fabric assortment from Marjorie Lee Bevis (I think she was selling them through Luana Rubin's equilter.com online shop at that time, but today she sells her fabric directly through her Etsy shop here) and started making 4" sawtooth stars out of them.  

Weekly Progress: Kaleidoscope On Track With More Fabric en Route

Anders' graduation quilt is starting to take shape on my design wall!  My goal for the past week was to get 23 of the necessary 63 block centers cut and pieced, and I pushed myself to get 8 block centers finished yesterday to stay on track with that goal.

11 inch Kaleidoscope Block Centers on my Design Wall

It's exciting to see the illusion of curved lines begin to emerge now that I have more blocks on the design wall.  However, it was SAD to take down my sampler blocks (again!) and put that project in Time Out.

One Last Look at the Retro Building Blocks Sampler Before Exile

I'm really hoping to come back to the Retro 'Eighties Building Blocks sampler as soon as the kaleidoscope project is finished.  I decided to store the blocks laid flat on my older son's bed, since he's away at college.  Two reasons: First, storing the blocks flat on Lars's bed means no creases from folding the larger blocks to fit in a storage bin or drawer.  Second, this will force me to return my attention to the sampler blocks immediately after finishing the kaleidoscope quilt top, since Lars will be coming home from school by then to SLEEP in this bed.  Buh-bye, sampler blocks!

In Which the Ghost of Claude Monet Wrests Artistic Control of My Kaleidoscope Quilt and Turns It Into Giverny

Oh-Ma-Goodness; It's MARCH Already!  I'll save you the suspense and tell you right up front: Finishing all 63 blocks for my son's high school graduation quilt is my one-and-only monthly goal for March.  By which I mean, finishing the octagonal centers of all 63 blocks is my goal -- I'll be deciding on the corner triangles once all of the octagons are completed and arranged to my liking on my design wall.  

Nine 11 Inch Kaleidoscope Blocks Completed

Behold, 9 of the 63 block centers are completed and up on my design wall.  That's one row down, and six more rows to go.  I'm planning to make three blocks from each fabric, so there will be much greater variety in the finished quilt than what you see on my wall right now.

The First Four Blocks

Keeping my time constraints in mind, I'm trying not to be TOO neurotic about the center points matching absolutely perfectly.  Meaning that I'm taking care to match them as perfectly as I can the first time, but have resisted the urge to grab my seam ripper over minuscule misalignment that you can only see from 2" away with your high-power reading glasses.

Kick-Starting the Kaleidoscope Quilt

Son-the-Younger's high school graduation quilt has begun!  And it's SOOO exciting!

In the photo above, the isosceles triangles have not yet been sewn together into an octagon, but I just loved the way the strippy pieced triangles came out and had to snap a picture.  This idea was born of necessity, because I didn't pay attention to the size of the hand dyed fabric pieces in the assortments I ordered from Marjorie Lee Bevis on Etsy and I do not have enough of any one of them to cut four identical 5" x 6" triangles out of any one fabric.  Bummer -- but also opportunity for inventive solutions!  I cut two different marbled fabric pieces into four strips each, then pieced them with strings of Kaffe Fassett, a green batik, and a strip of Tula Pink spots that was trimmed away from leftover quilt backing, all from my overflowing scrap bins, and then I layered for of these me-made string fabrics over my AccuQuilt 5" x 6" Isosceles triangle die to get two different sets of pieced triangles for my kaleidoscope blocks.

My GO! cutter did not appreciate me cramming four layers of pieced fabric with stacked seam allowances through at once, and it was really hard to turn the crank handle -- but it cut them cleanly and without breaking anything...  So I'll be doing that again!

First New-FO of 2021: Kaleidoscope Grad Quilt for Anders

Alright you guys, I know you've heard me sing this song before, but THIS time I mean it.  THIS is the quilt I'm making for Son-the-Younger's upcoming high school graduation:

77 x 99 Kaleidoscope Quilt in Blues, Greens, and Purple

Some of you are raising your eyebrows at this, recalling my previous announcement about a year ago that I would be making Anders a version of Karen Kay Stone's spectacular Cinco de Mayo quilt for his graduation, but that idea has been abandoned for the following reasons:

1. Graduation is only 5 months away, and I have customer quilt commitments that will demand my attention in addition to my own ongoing projects.
2. While I still love the elaborately foundation paper pieced New York Beauty blocks in Karen's design, I know that all of those seams add up to a stiffness that is fine for a wall display quilt, but not so soft and snuggly to sleep under.
3. It bothered me that the New York Beauty blocks were too similar to the curved flying geese arcs in my older son Lars's high school graduation quilt, and I wanted Anders' quilt to be completely different.
4. Most importantly, I think, is that I just don't want to devote such a significant block of time to recreating a version of someone else's design right now.

So I may (or may not) end up making a quilt like Cinco de Mayo someday, but it's not going to be Anders' graduation quilt.

Drumroll, Please: Son the Younger Has Approved His Quillow Design for 2021!

The experience of making Lars's high school graduation quilt from start to finish in only three months was so stressful that it left me physically ill and completely wiped out.  I have never even made a baby quilt in such a short time frame.  Deadline quilting doesn't suit me, so I'm getting a jump start on Son-the-Younger's high school graduation quilt for 2021 -- in hopes that I can actually enjoy making this one!

Anders' Graduation Quilt for 2021, New York Beauty Blocks by Karen K. Stone

Step one was the solicitation of Son-the-Younger's opinions and preferences regarding the style and design of his quilt.  If you had asked me a week ago, I would have predicted that Anders would want something simpler and less conspicuous than his brother's quilt.  I thought maybe I would be making a T-shirt quilt, because Anders has a fabulous collection of T-shirts with snarky science and violin jokes that he has begun to outgrow.  But no, he does not want a T-shirt quilt.  

I started filling a Pinterest board with a wide range of options for his perusal, with some quilts pinned because of the piecing design and others because I liked the color scheme, and many of them would have been fairly straightforward to put together.  But the quilt that caught his eye was not a "quilt-in-a-day" project -- he picked Cinco de Mayo by Karen K. Stone.  

72 x 72 Cinco de Mayo Quilt by Karen Kay Stone (Book is OOP but available here)

Lars's graduation quilt was an original design, and it was cool to do something completely one-of-a-kind for him.  But I have always wanted to play with New York Beauty blocks and Karen K. Stone designed so many interesting variations on this historical block -- I love her quilt.  What's more, these blocks are available as an add-on-purchase for my EQ8 software, so I was able to start with the blocks and layout Karen designed, add two rows to the layout so the quilt would fit an XL Twin college dorm bed, and then start right in playing with color without having to draft those variations myself.

72 x 96 Cinco de Mayo Resized for XL Twin Bed, in Monochrome

Like Lars's quilt, Anders' quilt will be comprised of 48 twelve inch blocks in a 6 x 8 layout for a finished size (before quilting) of 72" x 96".  Karen's original Cinco de Mayo quilt is 72" x 72" so I just needed to add two more rows.  When I asked Anders what colors he wanted, he said something about blue and white.  After playing around with it for awhile, I decided shades of blue with accents of red/orange would be more fun to work with.  Not sure yet whether I'll stick with solids or venture off into tonal solids, batiks and prints, but what has me most excited about this project is that every block in the quilt is unique and I get to play with scraps, fussy cutting of any interesting prints...  That should help keep things interesting.

Coloring is Just a Guide; This Quilt Will be Scrappy

Quillow Sunday 2021 is twenty-three months away.  

If I make three blocks per month, I'll have all 48 finished in 16 months.  If I make 2 1/2 blocks per month, I'll still be done making them all in 20 months, giving me a month to assemble the blocks into a top and another two months for quilting and binding.  That is SO MUCH MORE my speed!!

Because it's not like I don't have anything else to work on...  Does anyone remember THIS quilt?

Neglected WIP Quilt for Anders That No Longer Fits His Bed

Yes, I'm ashamed to admit that I started making this quilt for Anders back when he was twelve, and here he is about to turn 16 and I have finished ONE block.  Ugh!  It's the Moda Modern Building Blocks sampler, except that I resized it, swapped out a few of the blocks, and added the rainbow stripe borders to the top and bottom to make it fit a twin bed with a really deep pillow top mattress, and then I matched my Kona Solid colors to the modern graphic wallpaper in his en suite bathroom.  And since my son is now TOWERING over me at 5'10" or 5'11" or whatever, we got him a Queen bed.  The irony is that the original quilt pattern was sized to fit a Queen bed and all the blocks would have been ruler-friendly measurements if I'd left it alone...  So anyway, there happen to be 48 blocks in that quilt, of which 47 blocks remain to be constructed.  I need to finish the middle school quilt before my kid graduates from high school, too. Ugh -- so many quilts!!  So little time!!

I'm headed to Appalachian State for New Student & Parents Orientation tomorrow, so consider this my jump start on Design Wall Monday, To-Do Tuesday, AND my July OMG (One Monthly Goal).

This week's To Do:

• Resize Beware the Ishmaelites (Anders' MBB Sampler Quilt) so that it fits a Queen bed again
• Make the two 6" Farmer's Wife blocks that I've selected as "palate cleansers" between projects
• Cut out the turquoise clam shells and circles for the 6-months-overdue Modern Baby Clam Shell quilt (Can you imagine how uncomfortable the poor mother would be if her baby was as long overdue as the baby's quilt?!)

And this month's goals:

• Make the first NY Beauty block for Trece de Agosto (Anders' graduation quilt version of Cinco de Mayo)
• Repair Lars's Drunken Dragons quilt and get that back on his bed in our house
• Make THREE more blocks for Beware the Ishmaelites
• Make another block for Trece de Agosto, Anders' graduation quilt

By the way -- if any one of you owns this Karen K. Stone Quilts book, or your library has a copy, or your friend has one that I could borrow, I would really, REALLY appreciate it.  I can't bring myself to spend over $80 for a paperback book, especially when I already own the patterns from the book, but I would really like to take a look at the instructions to avail myself of any tips, tricks, or special techniques that Karen used in the construction of these very intricate New York Beauty blocks.  Thank you!

I'm linking up with:

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·      Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework http://quiltingismorefunthanhousework.blogspot.com

·      Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts http://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com 

·      Main Crush Monday at Cooking Up Quilts http://www.cookingupquilts.com/

·      Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt http://lovelaughquilt.blogspot.com/

·      Moving it Forward at Em’s Scrap Bag: http://emsscrapbag.blogspot.com.au/

·      BOMs Away at Katie Mae Quilts: https://www.katiemaequilts.com/blog/ 

·      Colour and Inspiration Tuesday at http://www.cleverchameleon.com.au

·       To-Do Tuesday at Stitch ALL the Things: http://stitchallthethings.com

·      One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts: http://www.elmstreetquilts.com/

·      Midweek Makers at www.quiltfabrication.com/

·      WOW WIP on Wednesday at www.estheraliu.blogspot.com

6 Days Until Quilt Week: Mission Impossible, Vintage Repair + New Tumbler Top All Ready for Quilting!

Oh my gosh, you guys -- is this what it feels like to plan your work, work your plan, and finish a project way ahead of a deadline?!  

It was a little after midnight when I finished the last seam in Lars's Mission Impossible graduation quilt top and gave it a final pressing.  I needed help getting it back up on the design wall for a final photo, and my family was sleeping.  

72 x 96 Mission Impossible Quilt Top, Almost Finished in Photo, Totally Finished IRL

I decided that one of the almost-done pictures would have to suffice; you can't really tell from a photo what's sewn and what isn't, anyway.  So I folded it up carefully, draped it over a hanger, and hung it in the guest room closet.  I'm officially renaming our guest room closet Quilt Purgatory, now that I have quilt tops lined up in there, patiently waiting their turn on the longarm:

1. Jingle BOM (Piecing & Applique)
2. Paint Me a Story (Bear Paws & Sawtooth Stars)
3. Pineapple Nostalgia (Pineapple Log Cabin)
4. Mission Impossible (Geese In Circles)
5. Vintage Utility Quilt Restoration

In addition to those five, I have a backing and binding prepared and ready to go for the Modern Baby Clam Shell quilt.  

My EQ8 Design for Modern Baby Clam Shells, 40 x 40

The modern baby for whom this quilt is intended is now four months old, so this project will be moving up on my list.  So far all I've done is design work and fabric shopping (I spend a LOT OF TIME on the design and fabric shopping part), and I've cut out the print clam shells, as you can see below.  After putting the Mission Impossible quilt top to bed Sunday night in the wee hours of Monday morning, I threw these print clams up on the empty design wall and moved them around until I liked the arrangement.  I ended up swapping out a couple of the prints so the layout in real life doesn't exactly match the EQ8 rendering, but don't you love how EQ8 quilt design software perfectly scales those prints so that they look exactly the same on the computer as they do when I cut out my actual fabric?

Modern Baby Clam Shells On the Design Wall at Midnight

Next for that project is cutting out all of the turquoise background fabric -- whole and partial clam shells plus circles for the center row.    I think this quilt is going to need some machine embroidered personalization, too, and that means I have to revisit my options for loading my Windows based Bernina v8 Designer Plus embroidery software on my nifty iMac computer.  I'm looking forward to digitizing with the giant 27" monitor so I can see what I'm doing (and my younger son, Anders, is looking forward to inheriting my laptop as soon as I get that software working on my new computer!).

Mom's First Quilt Top: 4 inch Tumblers, will be approx. 42 x 56 after trimming

Another exciting top that is nearly ready for Quilt Purgatory is an outreach tumbler quilt that I'm super excited about because my MOM made this top, all by herself!  I have launched another unsupervised quilter into the world!  YAY!!!  When we finished sewing the curved seams of the Mission Impossible blocks together, I wanted my mom to stay and hang out with me while I continued working on the graduation quilt.  I got out my Accuquilt GO! Baby die cutter and the 4" tumbler die and set her loose in my scrap bins, and this is what she came up with.  The dark purple fabric is the same Kona Solid I was using in Lars's graduation quilt.  It ended up a bit larger than I'd initially anticipated so I'll need to piece a new backing for it and find a suitable binding in my stash before packing this one away in Quilt Purgatory.

This will be yet another quilt top that I can practice on to improve my longarm quilting skills, and when it's finished I'll donate it to the Charlotte Quilters' Guild Outreach Committee.  It will go to either to the Pediatric Unit at the hospital, where it will bring some sunshine, snuggling and cheer to someone who needs it!  I'm looking forward to practice SITD (stitching in the ditch) all of those seams between the tumblers and maybe quilting something fun (scary fun!) in the solid tumblers, where the stitching will show up the best.

MEANWHILE...  

In preparation for my upcoming longarm quilting workshops at Quilt Week, I went back and rewatched the Judi Madsen's Quilting Makes a Difference iQuilt video classes I'd purchased ages ago, taking notes and writing down all of the questions that popped into my head.  I used the "Ask a Question" feature built into the iQuilt platform and Judi got back to me with answers to all of my questions within 24 hours, much faster than I'd expected.  

Judi's Quilting Wide Open Spaces Book, Available on Amazon here

I also have both of Judi's books and I started rereading those (and taking MORE notes) in the waiting room during Lars's wisdom teeth extraction yesterday morning.  (Surgery went well but Lars did not tolerate the anesthesia well.  He was vomiting and in a lot of pain despite the drugs for most of yesterday -- I felt so bad for him that I cleaned his room and did all of his laundry, which I NEVER do anymore).

Judi's Secondary Designs Book, Available on Amazon here

I just ordered Lisa Calle's Divide and Design book on Amazon (she's the other teacher whose longarm quilting workshops I'll be taking at Paducah), but I saw that she also has some video classes available on iQuilt.  I'm not as familiar with her work, but if I have time I might do one of Lisa's online iQuilt classes before taking workshops with her in person at Quilt Week.  

Lisa's Divide and Design Book, Available on Amazon here

Personally, I am a huge book learner more than anything else -- that's my favorite way to learn, and I highlight and annotate my books so I can quickly go back and find information when I need it months or even years later.  Video classes don't make for great references because you have to sit through the whole video again to find the information you were looking for.  But of course the downside to both books AND video classes is the lack of instructor feedback and the inability to ask questions.  But we all learn differently, and it's great to have all of these options available today.

I have a meeting with an interior design client today and will probably have followup work to do in my office when I get back.  Not sure how late my workday will wrap up and whether I'll have any "sewjo" left at the end of today, but if I DO get time in my studio, I'll be using it to clean and oil my longarm machine and load up a quilt!  

To-Do On Tuesday:

I know I'm a day late for To-Do On Tuesday, but I've got goals to share nonetheless:

1. Spa Day for my APQS Millennium Longarm Quilting Machine!  She needs to be dusted off, any oxidation wiped away from aluminum rails, hook race cleaned out thoroughly with WD-40 and then oiled, and get a fresh, new needle 
2. Load that Vintage Repair Quilt and get it quilted
3. Continue preparing (and start PACKING!) for my longarm quilting workshops at Quilt Week
4. Trim sides of Outreach Tumbler quilt top
5. Piece backing for Outreach Tumbler quilt
6. Select and cut binding for Outreach Tumbler quilt, hopefully from stash

I'm linking today's post up with the following linky parties:

TUESDAY

·      Colour and Inspiration Tuesday at http://www.cleverchameleon.com.au

·       To-Do Tuesday at Stitch ALL the Things: http://stitchallthethings.com

WEDNESDAY

·      Midweek Makers at www.quiltfabrication.com/

·      WOW WIP on Wednesday at www.estheraliu.blogspot.com

THURSDAY

·      Needle and Thread Thursday at http://www.myquiltinfatuation.blogspot.com/  

FRIDAY

·      Finish It Up Friday at www.sillymamaquilts.com

·      Whoop Whoop Fridays at www.confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com

·      Finished Or Not Friday at http://busyhandsquilts.blogspot.com/