machine quilting

My head hasn’t looked up for the past few weeks. I have been focused on completing machine quilting on lots of old projects and re-purposing some of my workshop withdrawal pieces into Christmas gifts. I haven’t made gifts in a few years after I made myself crazy staying up all night on Christmas Eve to […] Read More...

Tomorrow is the artist’s opening for Artprize 2013. I am excited to see the venue and meet the other artists. But I am most excited to spend time with 2 friends, Elizabeth Brandt and Gail Baar. All of us will have work that is being exhibited at the same venue. It’s a nice treat to be able […] Read More...

I thought I would be showing you a finished piece at the end of this week. It always takes longer than I think it will. When I went to put the binding on tonight, I realized that I had a huge spot of machine oil on my piece. I took a […] Read More...

I traveled to Vermont the day after Christmas. We have a houseful for the vacation so lots of cooking has been involved but also lots of great snow so the family is skiing and playing in the snow. And I am back to sewing. I started with working on my […] Read More...

I had another great privilege this week via our local quilt guild, the West Michigan Quilt Guild. Every two months our guild brings in a teacher and this month was two days of classes by the wonderful Sue Nickels. Sue is a traditional quilter and has been involved for over twenty years in teaching machine […] Read More...

I thought I would be able to dive right in on Sunday and begin basting and sandwiching my quilt. But, I didn’t have batting or enough backing to start it. So, I spent yesterday running around finding what I needed. It was really inefficient but, I have found what I needed. Looking at […] Read More...

There is something rewarding about just pushing through and making it work even though you don’t like the initial design. I pushed even though the colors were not making me happy.The initial design was kind of cheesy. Well really just bad. In the end , I just needed to work through it and […] Read More...

I have an appointment. No-not to have my head examined. But with Leah Day of Day Style Designs who has put together an awesome amount of tutorials about free motion quilting. I have been spending maybe thirty minutes a day practicing some of these design on her blog. She is a great teacher and her […] Read More...

I am dreaming of the fairy that is going to get me off my duff , wave her magic wand and sprinkle lots of magic dust and then I will finish something wonderful. And then I will write this amazing blog post and have a million followers. Hah..my dream continues and ….I am […] Read More...

I really missed watching the Olympics last night. I would sit down with the kids and just do a little hand sewing each night. Just loved snuggling on the couch with the two kids and it was amazing how we all scattered so quickly last night finding other things to do. Have to […] Read More...

Never got around to snow dyeing on Wednesday. I came to my senses and realized I just had a little bit of time to see what would happen with those little plexiglass cut-outs. And the reason I hauled out the dye to begin with was that I needed some more navy blue for […] Read More...

I have been doing just a little handstitching on a small quilt. Not much as we had eight soccer games this weekend. That was just insane. I was sitting there thinking of an even more insane person who scheduled these games-certainly not a mother. They have all returned to school and after […] Read More...

I read last night that it takes about 500 hours to become proficient in machine quilting. Since I only have at the most 250 hours in , I guess I have no choice but to continue. I have decided today, I will minimize what I rip out and just keep going. None […] Read More...