Lucie The Happy Quilter's Blog

It’s been an interesting day in happy longarm quilter land. I kicked off the day by walking the dogs in the cold rain. There was no ice under foot so I made it all the way around in an upright position. It was quite a refreshing experience.

Next on the list was to click go on the longarm quilting system. And I carried on until the job was finished. I worked on my beginner’s sampler quilt. Here’s little sneaky peek …..

I decided on the Cloud Nine quilting design by Patricia Ritter and a lovely fine rich sand colour thread. I opted for a quilting design that sits quietly on the sampler because I want the beginner quilt makers to concentrate on the basics of quilt making rather than the finishing. All my chosen blocks are simple but will teach the new quilt makers the basic how-to of quilt making while having fun.

Once the quilting was done I machined the binding on and dragged out my trusty Clover clips ……

I will start hand finishing the binding this evening and tomorrow the label will be added.

I can’t even remember when I started making the blocks for this project but since I’ve done it in stages it didn’t really take that long. It’s quite a good way to work on a project really. It gives you a chance to do other things in between so that you don’t get sick of it. It was fun choosing blocks, fabrics and layout for this project. And now that it’s quilted I feel even better about it. The quilt will be unveiled later this week when I drop it off at Stitchin’ Heaven where I will be teaching the classes starting next month on February 15^th along with a few other classes. Twenty years ago when I first started making quilts I never imagined that I would be teaching others to do the same.

It’s going to be a busy week for me because I plan on finishing another type of sampler. This next one is a Freemotion Quilting Sampler. This will give the ladies a chance to both learn and practice their Freemotion Quilting skills and use the practice pieces in a sampler while learning the quilt as you go method. I am aiming for twelve different Freemotion Quilting designs and I’ve done nine so far. Three more and I can start joining them together. It will be a good record of the different designs I enjoy the most. I can’t wait to show you what I’ve done. Even the practice pieces that won’t be going in the sampler will get used somehow. It’s really rather nice developing new-to-me concepts. And the next project after this one will be a Freemotion Quilting wholecloth Sampler. It’s not going to be ginormous; I plan on using a regular 44” width of fabric in order to make it manageable for anyone brave enough to try it.

So my day has been quite productive even if it was only in my mind! I have almost finished another of my gentle goals 2014 which is my beginner’s sampler and I have done more planning on other projects. I’ve recorded lots of ideas in my notebook.  In order to make all my ideas come to fruition I will have to give up sleeping for a while.

So for this evening, this very happy longarm quilter will be hand finishing some binding and possibly doing some more planning. I hope you have a brilliant evening in the cosiness of your homes doing something that makes you smile. Until you read me again,

Happy stitching. ♥ ♥