A Finish!

Finishes are wonderful aren't they!  Such a good feeling when all your hard work results in a wonderful quilt!  I started Country Roads several summers ago to use up some old stash.  The pattern is Simply Woven from Moda Bake Shop and really is a fun project.  The results are a quilt that looks much more complicated than it is!

I knew when I made this quilt, that I would machine quilt it as we can't hand quilt them all.  So I chose to try spiral machine quilting to finish this one!  I don't know if I will ever master free motion quilting but walking foot quilting is doable and now that I have my second quilt under my belt I am feeling more comfortable with it.  My shoulders are relaxing, but I still need to remind my self to let the machine do the work and by going slow and adjusting enough it can go quite smoothly.

I have to give a shout out to Cathy over at Sane, Crazy, Crumbly Quilting who was so kind to give me a heads up on how to finish the very beginning of the spiral. The walking foot doesn't let you go much smaller than a four inch circle.  So she suggested marking and
using a regular foot to finish off the spiral.  It worked wonderfully.  I used my open toe foot so I could see exactly where I was going! Thanks Cathy!

I use Hobbs Poly/Down batting and even though it is pretty heavily quilted when it came out of the wash it was nice and soft.  I am so glad that I have given machine quilting another go!

Slow Stitching Sunday

It's been a while since I have done any slow stitching! This summer has been filled with a lot of machine piecing and even some machine quilting.  This week I finished up the machine quilting on Country Road.  My first attempt at spiral quilting.  I must say it was very enjoyable!!!!  Country Road is a lap quilt that only measures 58X68 so it was managable for me under the throat plate of my domestic machine.  I loved that you could just keep stitching until the bobbin runs out! When I machine quilt I always bring the bobbin thread to the top and later knot it off and bury the thread into the quilt very much like when I hand quilt. My machine has a locking stitch but I really don't like the look of that slew of tiny stitches. So fewer starts and stops is a plus in my book.  Starting in the center is a bit intense, but soon you are on your way.

So I am pleased today that I can put in a few more slow stitches as I finish stitching the scrappy binding down.  I am very pleased with this scrap buster quilt.  Even the back was pieced together from scraps!  So when it came to the binding it was worth the extra effort to use scraps to make the binding.  This quilt was started to use up some scraps and I thought it would be a quick project, but as usual I let the quilt dictate what it needs.  Then it is just a pure joy to work on and the time it takes to finish it doesn't matter anymore.  I will be linking up with Slow Stitching Sunday to see what others are stitching today as I put in the final binding stitches!