Becky's quilt obsession

Because I now have Intelliquilter installed and running on Black Bart - my Nolting 24" Pro longarm, I am selling all my Circle Lord items. The following are for sale. If you are in the Kansas City, MO area, I will give a 10% discount if I don't have to package and ship items. All prices are plus shipping. I have the following giant templates that come in 3 interlocking pieces to fit various needs. All of these were sold to me as king-size, and I’ve never had a quilt larger than them even when I had a 14’ table. I’m asking $150 a set,plus shipping. Zig Zag – does what I call wave and Ribbon quilting as well as a true zig-zag that you can use for crosshatching. You use either the waves or the zig-zags, not usually combining the two.  14" wide boards  This quilt was quilted with waves: Cosmos – Funky flowers Sold pending payment. 15" wide Cosmos   The back of a quilt using Cosmos Boards Basic Circle Lord set-up  I’m ask...

We added Intelliquilter to my longarm (Black Bart - a 24" Nolting Pro). In learning it I have finished up a LOT of small UFOs that I didn't remember existing. I used to make small quilts out of my scraps so I could remember the large quilt since I give so many away. These are my latest finishes: St. Louis 16 patch, scrappy, charity quilt for teen-age boy Quilted with IQ - QOV pattern 9-patches bought at Guild Boutique made into Sister's Choice blocks - baby quilt Quilted way too densely with IQ swirls and Pebbles 24" x 18" HST sampler - first try at "Custom" quilting with IQ All the designs came from the "from Helen"  file on IQ Baby quilt made from HSTs - 6" bought from Guild boutique Made it a "Sampler" of quilting patterns on IQ Framed 9-Patches from Guild Boutique with Rosebud alternate squares Working on SID with IQ and repeating patterns 20 year old pillow blocks quilted...

You might have read my blog post over on Quilty Pleasures Blog about the Mandarin Express quilt I made in red, black and white for the scrap squad. In it I gave the illusion that I caught my mistake while it was a top. Not so. This is the picture I took of it for the blog: Do you see it?  The offending section? Try the right end of the second row of stars . . . .Ah, now you see it. Note that it is entirely quilted, binding in place, and hanging for its final picture. I did not see this until posting it as the last picture in the Quilty Pleasures blog. My DDH (double dear) was kind enough to Photoshop a correction of the quilt in time for me to meet my deadline. This, however, is how the quilt was actually finished. The first step was to carefully rip out the quilting, leaving as long tail as possible to each line. I was fortunate that all the edges here are turned under already. The hardest part was actually finding a stitch to start ripping out the piece. I now have increase...

My design wall today is actually a quilt blocking surface. DH and I went to Home Depot and bought some 3/4”  dense foam insulation to use as a blocking surface. I laid some batting on it, and then pinned my Halloween medallion on it. Several years ago DH bought me my own laser level so I could have a straight line to pin against. It’s not a perfect set-up, but it beats anything else I ever tried. I quilted the medallion with my Cog 18” Circle Lord template, and then tried to put 3/4 cogs in the corners.  I hate that you have to work the CL from the back of the machine, because it is almost impossible to backtrack without looking right down on the stitches. They make a CL that works from the front of the machine for APQS, but not for Nolting. I wish they would work on one for Nolting, but I don’t think there is much demand. I’m hoping engineer DH will come up with something when he has time to think about it. I did do one more little thing, a journal cover out of the s...

Most of the past week was spent taking my fledgling quilter to the Happiest Place on Earth. Disneyland was all decked out for Halloween. We spent time there, at California Adventure, and a short time at the beach while visiting with one of DH’s college friends. They've kept their friendship intact all these years.   I did put the borders on the Halloween Medallion wall hanging, so it can go on Black Bart this week. I hope to try out my new Cobblestone board from Circle Lord. I’ll try to bind the pink quilt this week, as well. We have DGD#2 most of the week so her mother can attend a seminar away from home. She likes being outside, so I hope to plant my tulip bulbs this week as well as pull weeds and trim back overgrown roses. The Knock-out Roses loved the heat, and we watered, so they grew very well! Happy Quilting, Becky

Young quilter at work! Grandma did the first and last rows since DGD#1 couldn't see over Black Bart to do the guiding. Other than that, she helped load, advance, and remove the quilt from BB. We used the Cosmos Circle Lord boards – the hardest I have, but she wanted flowers.   She picked some binding fabric; we cut the strips, then Gma went outside to keep DGS company as he did some digging for me. I should have stayed inside and put on the binding. I ended up slipping, falling backwards down onto the steep part of the concrete driveway which unfortunately had the rake laying on it. Nothing broken, but no more sewing with “the hand” for a while. Ah, the joys of growing old and less steady. Happy Quilting, Becky

Thanks for the nice comments about my QOV – plain, simple, instead of boring. I’m always amazed at the difference quilting makes. There is a book by Lee Cleland of this title, and I’m always amazed at the difference. I put the lime green binding on this quilt at retreat, and received many oohs and ahs about it, nearly all about the quilting. The texture certainly changes the plainness. I had just about enough fabric left for a pillowcase. So, my adventure into modern quilting wasn’t a waste of time, it just shows that quilting is much more than just piecing. I had a good time at retreat, but was also ready to come home. I missed my tall cutting table more than anything else. I bought a layer cake of some fun fabrics and made the blocks for one of those funny four patches that has the you tube video about it. The blocks didn’t turn out exactly square, so I will need to fix that. I just can’t make myself fudge that much. I also need to put them on a design wall so the colors are so...

Such a wonderful start to my day. Roses arrived from my DH – he always sends a day ahead as you receive the best roses then. I then opened my inbox, and there were more emails than I’ve ever received at once asking for a copy of a PDF file I made of paper-pieced houses. If you are here looking for them, they are now in the Yahoo group Stashbuster files. I completed the components for the second “round” of the JN Lone Star, and I now like it. The dark second background brings out the center first star. I have another ongoing project I could use your opinion on. I bought these old kaleidoscope blocks on eBay a long time ago. I took some of them apart and remade them a bit – only recutting the center part, leaving the second round and the corners alone. They started out, and are ending up several different sizes, from 8 to 9+ inches. In the picture the pink one lower right is one of the originals and you can see that it is very wavy. The others I have remade. I thought about setting th...