Becky's quilt obsession

Today Bart is modeling the last of the R-W-B Chinese Coins that HeartStrings made a long while ago. This one is in the Funky Caterpillar pattern (link on sidebar). I just love the texture that the Spiral templates give it. I remembered to take a half-way break, but I think my feet want me to take 2 days to do this much. This one will go to Alycia for her QOV project when it is finished. I'm still loving the LeaderGrips for loading and unloading. I watched their video again, and noted that they clamp the end of the dowels so they don't roll away. I did it, and it works! I still really like not having any pins involved. I was always catching myself on them, and bleeding on the quilt! The battery in my camera just went dead, or I would show you a fun little UFO I made to the flimsy stage yesterday. When hunting in the 2" square scrap bin, I found some little 4-patch "Posies" blocks - cut long before there was anything called a 4-patch Posy. They were left over...

Black Bart is holding up 4 doll quilts I'm finishing up today. The outer two are just double-sided quilted fabric with a binding started on them. There is a pillow to match. The two center ones are made from the cut-offs left of flannel fat quarters when I cut out a Rag Quilt for my friend with CP. I had been moving them around, and around; there wasn't any one spot for them, and I didn't want to put them away (where?) and forget about the stack. They ended up next to a yard of ladybug flannel DD bought and wanted me to make into dolly blankies. Yesterday I just sat down and sewed the strips together, loaded the ladybug fabric on Black Bart, and quickly quilted them. I used some of that really thin batting, and even figured out how to make it work with only one seam in it. When I completed the quilts, I cut them away from the flannel, trimmed the flannel into two dolly blankies, then thought about binding. I found a fat quarter of a solid lavender, cut it into bias bindin...

I finally quilted a quilt on Black Bart! This is a HeartStrings Happy Blocks top, with "matching" backing made with donations by the Queen of Backs! I haven't quilted since before Christmas. LeaderGrips - I found a wonderful (so far) way to load Backing on the long arm. I bought LeaderGrips , sewed a casing in the new leaders, then filled the casing with the wooden dowels. You then put little plastic clips in the center and both ends, then replace those with the long plastic piece. They have a video of it on you tube. Since I hadn't installed zippers on the new table, it was easy to sew the casing. I used the new side clamps that Nolting sells to steady the leader down its length and used the channel locks to sew an almost straight line. I did pin the casing first. It took me about 7 minutes to load both sides of the backing. No pinning, no basting to zippers, just those plastic pieces. I used something similar a long time ago to hold tablecloths to banque...

Black Bart has arrived and is ready to quilt! A friend has already put Bart through his paces, and quilted a baby quilt. Making room for Bart has been quite an experience, and time consuming, but the quilting place is finally ready for sewing again. Black Bart needed additional lighting. DH installed new track lighting (instead of the non-functional one previously there), as there really isn't room for the Nolting light bar frame. Does anyone out there need a 14' free-standing light bar? If you don't have a long-arm machine, it would be good for growing hanging plants! My design wall behind Bart is becoming just a display station, as it is really not accessible and I would just knock any blocks down with my backside. My piecing space cha nged as well. There is now shared space in front of my sewing table. The table scoots back when using Bart, and is pushed back out for sewing. I haven't figured out the power part. There is a floor plug in front of the table, but the ...