Progress.

I said in my last post that I was hoping to get the quilting finished on my Jelly Roll Race quilt this weekend, and yesterday I did just that.

Nothing fancy, just row after row of wavy lines.

While Miss Belle was doing her inspections...

I got the binding made. When I was cutting those lovely splashes of colour, I made sure to keep enough of the colours back to be able to bind the finished top.

I had just enough time, before heading off to work, to sew the binding in to place.

Todays job is to trim the top, because I was in a hurry to attach the binding, I didn't bother to do it yesterday. 

Then I'll pick a movie or maybe one of my Attenborough favourites and sit me down comfortably and close the binding. 

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Then what?

I do have more quilt tops that need to be quilted, but I feel like a change of pace....

I'll see where the muse, or the squirrel takes me. 

 

A Bit of Quilting and some Sale Shopping!

 I've started my studies again, so my sewing time has reduced a little. Only a little though as I have decided to slow down a little on the studies and not work quite as intensely as I did last year. So far I'm enjoying the reduced pace.

It gives me more time to play.

On Wednesday I loaded this Jelly Roll Race on to the frame and made a start.

I'm using the pattern perfect boards again, keeping it simple by repeating the small wave pattern over and over.

I'm about half way down the quilt and hope to get it completed over the weekend.

For binding I have the remainder of the rainbow batik jelly roll that was used to add those splashes of colour.

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Speaking of batik, an online store I frequent was having their pre stock take sale and offered bundles of 10 pre cut fat quarters at a very good price, (They specified they would not be cutting new, only using up what was already cut in store) so I bit and bought two bundles. I was able to give instructions regarding colour etc. I asked for batiks in blues and maybe greens, but all different please, so long as they played nicely together. Sometimes this kind of shopping can be a bit of a gamble, but who ever picked them did really well, I love them.

In all of that, there was one repeat. Pretty good odds I say. 

They are going to live in this drawer.....

I think I had better do something soon with some batik off cuts, or a good sized batik quilt maybe.

It's getting pretty crowded in there.

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It's a cool, dark and wet day here in my little part of the world. More like winter than summer. A good day to stay indoors and play, so I'm off to quilt until it is time to work. 

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How is your weekend going?

On The Frame

The other night I finally loaded a quilt onto my frame. It feels like it has been ages, even though I did Sea Swept just before Christmas. Hmm, I just looked back in my blog and it was November. 

So anyway, it was time to try out my Christmas gift. If you remember, Tony purchased the Grace company's Pattern Perfect System for me. 

Do you remember this lovely that came in a bag of scraps from FB? 

I rearranged the squares as they were not quite right. It was fun last week trying to get an outdoor  photo. A seemingly still day, with not a breath of wind yet neither of the quilt tops I wanted to photograph would hang nicely for me. 

Tuesday night it went on to the frame.

I planned to utilise the larger of the wavy lines on the boards.

I had already had a good look at the book, It did not have much to say.

And I was not impressed with how things turned out when I did follow the meagre instructions/suggestions.

I was unable to find much in the way of instructional videos or how tos on the net, so in the end I just got stuck in and started.

Did I practice first using an off cut of batting and an old sheet??

NO! 

😉

Good thing things went ok then. LOL

By moving the stylus forward and backward on the machine carriage after each pass over the quilt top.

and moving the boards left or right on the frame base.

A simple wavy line can make quite pretty fluid and organic patterns.

I had thought I might just do a simple cross hatch on this quilt, it would probably have been done in less time than it took to load it on to the frame, but I'm glad I decided to pop it onto the frame and have a play.

Problem now is, partially through my first quilt using the system, I want more boards, with prettier and more complex patterns, lots of them need a longer machine.....

Negotiations have opened....

This may take a long time.

Or a lotto win.

That's my news, I'm off to finish quilting,...... I just realised, I didn't give this one a name yet.

How about Refreshed Florals?

Nope!

Fresh Florals?

That will do.

Now that is sorted,

I'm off to finish quilting Fresh Florals.