Monday, December 29, 2014

Thank you

This fleece throw is a thank you gift for a most deserving person.






Sunday, December 21, 2014

Finally, Lord Willing

These quilts are the result of a pledge I made for 12 QOV quilts for 2012.  I naively thought I could do 1 a month with my then new Gammill longarm quilting machine.  I can do 1/month now but not then.  I way underestimated the learning curve & health delays. Anyway here are the first 4 of the 12 going to Colorado tomorrow Lord willing.  It's hard to part with something  that has dominated my energies & thinking for 3 years.







Monday, December 15, 2014

Where eagles Dare

I tried a difficult pattern, "Where Eagles Dare."  It's definitely worth working on.















Saturday, October 25, 2014

This One Makes Me Want To Salute

This is the brother of the quilt in my last post.  The last one only took around 4 hours to quilt.  The same design took over 7 hours on this quilt because of multiple thread breaks.  But I think this quilt top pattern by Nancy Rink is very regal.



Monday, October 6, 2014

Another QOV

I'm pretty happy with how long it took to do this simple panto - 4 hrs.  The big girls probably do this in 2 but this is down from 7 hrs for me.

Saturday, September 27, 2014

Thursday, September 11, 2014

QUILTS OF VALOR AWARD

On Sep 10 2014 two coworkers, Valerie Bridges and Tony Gibbons were awarded Quilts of valor.  Valerie retired with 23 years service and among other things was a field trainer, a most vulnerable job in battle during the Iraqi Freedom campaign.  Tony was a medic in Desert Storm and was a sharp shooter and grenade specialist.








Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Another QOV Finish

I finished this one last weekend too.  Except for attaching the label.  It's an odd combo of humility, wishing my longarm skills were further along & proud of myself to accept the process & work hard to push on through.






Sunday, August 24, 2014

Quilts of Valor

I have recently quilted up 3 tops I made for Quilt of Valor.  I thought I was going to say this is done except for puting on the label but see some bad spots in the binding to redo.  I tried to machine sew it all & I don't have a good technique yet. 






Sunday, June 8, 2014

PPP Paying off finally!

This may not look like a big step in improvement but it's exciting to me to finally be able to see improvement in each practice & starting each succeeding practice session at a little bit higher level of skill.  I thought this fabric would be a perfect piece to practice precision.  I have a hard time hitting my mark on this powerful longarm sewing machine.

My first session (but after 4 hrs).  I admit to being discouraged at not any improvement in 4 hrs.

Then I put my needlebar out of alignment when the bobbin did not go in securely & I was trying to fix that all May, every weekend.  My longarm dealer Jeff Benedict finally saved my life & fixed it.
So the rest of that weekend Jeff fixed it I practiced some more & then had migraines knock me out for the next 5 days.  Stops & starts have been the routine for the past 2 years & the reason I think I can hold the title of longarming's longest beginner.  But I am finally making progress so there's something to dogged persistence.  I'm figuring out little formulas to do this without the ability to stand up at my stand up machine.  So here's this weekend's practice.  This is still wonky but I can definitely hit my mark most of the time.  This is SO encouraging to me!  (don't you love this fabric?!)