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Enjoy your stay under the variable skies of Eastern Washington and watch the seasons change, from planting to harvest here on the farm...be sure to wrap up in a quilt during the winter, it's cold!!

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Challenge Quilt Done!

I belong to the Inland Northwest Machine Quilters - lovely group of ladies who love to quilt by machine!  We meet four times a year and have a guest teacher every year.  Most everyone has a longarm, many have computer systems on their longarms and all of them are incredibly talented!!  Every year we have a challenge where we buy the kit to make a quilted something - changes every year - and this year I actually pieced my little 25" square wall hanging and got it quilted in time to be in the challenge!!  The last week of quilting it was a bit of a challenge because I was suffering from vertigo for the very first time!!  Is it really hard to stand there and guide my longarm when everything is spinning and tilting!!  I really went out of my box with this quilting and it was so much fun!  I used Superior Threads' gold and cranberry metallic thread and So Fine on the top of the quilt, and Bottom Line in the bobbin.  I used a double layer of batting - cotton on the bottom and wool on the top.  I also used Lisa Calle's Quilter's Groove Pro Line 16 (found here) to do the match stick quilting on the edges.  I forgot to get a picture of the back - Kona solids light gray - but when I get it back from the WSQ Spokane Quilt show I get some pictures of it - looks so cool!

Of course, this is the only picture I took - while it was hanging up at our meeting!!  I'm sure you can enlarge the picture if you are interested in seeing the quilting more closely.  There were 11 of us who participated in this challenge who were hand-guided, and only one who was using a longarm with a computer - they were supposed to digitize their own patterns and I guess most of them didn't know how to do that (I am certainly clueless!!).  This is probably the worst job of binding that I have ever done - it would not stop swirling with the room!!!  We will find out who wins the ribbon at the WSQ Spokane Quilt show October 17.  This is only voted on by the INMQ members.  It was fun to stretch myself and do something totally different.  I usually base my quilting on the blocks, and while I did use them for determining where the star points would go, I pretty much ignored what I was quilting on!!  When it comes home from the show, it will hang in my living room - my first wall hanging in my house!!!

2 comments:

Jeanie said...

First of all, I hope your vertigo has, or is going away. I've dealt with it for 20 years and it's pretty horrible. Secondly, your quilt is darling! I did enlarge it and your quilting lines are great. And third.... your first wall hanging in your home?....you'd better add more and more to show off! Great job!

Libby in TN said...

I had my first bout of vertigo last Saturday, so I know what you were going through. Good job, nonetheless. Just curious -- is it more difficult to longarm a small piece like this than a big one?