Monday, June 11, 2007

Quilting In The Country (again!)

On Saturday I went out to Janice's to learn how to load the 3 layers of a quilt on her Swiftquilter frame. I had a ball and only made a bird's nest once from forgetting to put the presser foot down. You can see a picture of me fixing it here. (I won't tell you how many needles I broke - suffice to say I owe Janice a new packet!) Janice wasn't feeling the greatest and pottered about working on her raffle quilt blocks.

I used a quilt top I had pieced from a whole lot of 2 1/2" squares I had cut out, years ago, of furnishing fabric samples and off cuts. These squares were intended to make a colour wash jacket and I had most of them pinned out on a huge piece of newsprint. It was one of the many things I never got finished. I had pulled them off the paper and had sewn them together in random (not colourwash) pairs. There they sat. With our club doing the Community Quilts project I pulled them out a couple of months ago and sewed them into 16 patch units. I finally got them together in an attic window setting. Not the greatest quilt in the world (in fact I think it is pretty ugly) but perfect for practicing some meander quilting:

Janice tells me I had the backing rolled the wrong way around, but it didn't seem to cause too many problems. I managed the edge quilting better than last time. I didn't quite get the whole lot finished in one day so out I went again on Sunday to finish it off.

The last run:
The Juki (back view):

Pulling the quilt off the rails (what a great feeling):

The back:

And the coffee was great!

A friend is someone who lets you quilt 2 quilts on her brand new equipment when she has done only one! At the end of the month Janice is going away for 5 weeks and has given me a key to her quilting studio! Coincidentally I have 2 weeks holiday starting the day after she and Terry leave. I can go out and practice machine quilting to my heart's content. Thank you, Janice.

10 comments:

Janice said...

You're welcome! Thanks for your company. And I still like the scrappiness and the colours of the quilt. :-)

Tanya said...

Wow! What a great friend and what a great quilt! I'd love a chance to get my hands on a machine like that! I have absolutely no idea what it takes to get a quilt "loaded". I can imagine you in seventh heaven!

Jenni said...

Janice gave you the key? I might fly over - it's only a few hours... I wish.

meggie said...

OOOH you lucky girl!! I think the quilt looks perfectly nice too! What fun you must have had.

Rose Marie said...

Well done and so very kind of your friend to let you play with her machine and you have it for 2 whole weeks, OMG!

catsmum said...

now THAT is what you call a true friend!!

mereth said...

It's a thrill seeing your quilt come off the rollers like that, all quilted and ready for binding. I think it's very pretty, you're being too critical by far.

Shelina said...

Helen, I enjoyed seeing your older quilt. You did a good job picking timeless fabric, with contrast, and were very brave in creating your own designs. I think you should be proud of your first endeavours.
Your newest quilt is also pretty. I like the different fabrics you used for it. And the quilting looks nice too. How fun that you get to play with the long arm some more!

Teodo said...

Great this quilt!
Happy saturday with Janice.
ciao ciao

Lisa said...

You're doing well and the quilt looks great. You'll be able to get lots done in 2 weeks wont you. Have fun.