April Giveaway Results

I have been beyond busy with piecing and quilting memorial quilts. This is no excuse I know - but honestly it is the only one I have!

In April I showed you how you can make over 100 different quilting designs just by using straight lines. For me it was a really useful exercise - it showed me that you can make so many different designs using one 'element' so to speak. If you are looking to push yourself and your free motion skills doing something like this can really show you how many options there are.

I've also made some similar samplers using just an arc, a loop and a hook. Each sampler showed me how far you could push a design just by using one shape. I hope to share them with you soon (when I have discovered the secret of sourcing more time magically!)

Anyway - enough of my wibbles and excuses. The lucky winner of the book from April - selected by the ever handy Random Number Selector - is Margaret. (Full disclosure Margaret is a member of my our guild the NYC Metro Mod Quilters - but I promise you no bribes were received!) Margaret is more than an amazingly and talented quilter and I know she will do something amazing with the information in this book.

One Line at a Time by Charlotte Warr Andersen is available on Amazon both new and second hand.

Dairy of a Longarm: Week 6

I have purchased some micro handles which are supposed to help me with micro/up close work. I tend to try to do quite dense/detailed quilting. The micro handles are helpful - your hands are in more of a similar position to that of domestic machine quilting - although they do reduce your working space by a few inches as they take up a little room in front of the front bar. I have been trying out some new things I haven't done before - using the Welcome Baby Blankets that I am making for our church as my experimenting ground.

For this little quilt I used free hand straight lines. Straight lines on the longarm are surprisingly easy & quick. Mine are not perfect - but I've been coveting the look of plain lines for a long time and it was really satisfying to try it out. I added some whimsy detail in between some of the lines & some curves in the corner.

I added colored ribbon loops around the quilts because babies just love to explore the texture ribbons & labels and you can hang infant toys on them too.

For the next little quilt I broke the quilt surface up into 4 sections using a curved line. I quilted circles in one area, spirals in another, hearts in another and flowing lines in another. I like how breaking up the service brings an added interest to the quilt.

Looking forward to using more straight lines & dividing quilts by texture more in the future!