Joanna's Pretty Purple Quilt

This was my first longarm quilt with Batik fabrics - these fabrics are dyed (as opposed to printed) and come from southern Asia. They are very tightly woven, and so I was worried about needle holes and tension trouble. Not to worry! My machine trucked right on through with nary a problem!

This quilt was being donated to the Calgary Children's Hospital, so I kept my quilting on the sparser side so that it was puffy and cuddly. Practiced simple feathers in the borders, loops in the purple diamond spaces, and of course Stitch-In-The-Ditch (SITD) and stippling. I don't care how much I learn or grow, I will ALWAYS love stippling! SITD seems like it should be easy, but it's really NOT easy to stay in that little valley on the low side of the seam and not get too far away or cross over to the high side. It is mindless, yes, but easy, NO.

Like my photo staging setup? Putting the girls' swingset to good during nap time!

Things I learned during this piece:

• press the "stop" button the MOMENT you feel a sneeze coming on.

• take a beat and pay attention to what you're doing, Carrie! I had a bit of a growing pain - transitioning from domestic sewing machine (DSM) to longarm. On the DSM, I would typically start quilting in the middle and work my way outward. Borders would be done all in one long swipe - working my way all the way around the quilt. On a longarm machine, quilting is completed from top to bottom, in swaths. So when you do borders, you have to do a few inches at a time, and then move to the next swath. This feather border was done in a clock-wise direction around the quilt. At one point after progressing the quilt to the next swath, I started at the bottom of the space without double-checking with the already-quilted area and FORGOT which direction the feather was supposed to go. As one of my teachers says, it takes a moment to pause and evaluate, but it takes a long time to pick out all those stitches if you don't.

• AND... I learned that THIS is what a half-full roll of batting looks like UNROLLED...

Crap - feathers going the WRONG way!