I wish I could call my mother and tell her how clever I was today. She always loved the idea of being clever. And she was when it came to sewing. I called her after I made my first quilt block and she rejoiced in my cleverness.
I have been making quilt tops for 11 years and then sending them out to various quilt ladies to do the quilting. My sister, Bonnie, has done some beautiful quilting on the quilts she has made with her sewing machine (which is just like mine!) But I never liked the bulkiness and (my) awkwardness of doing it on my machine.
Two weeks ago, the fabulous Wendy and I went to an all day class in San Mateo to learn how to quilt on a long-arm quilting machine. This quilt shop offered lessons (for a fee) and then allows you to rent time on their long-arm. Which is good because they are VERY expensive to buy. The quilt, batting, and backing are attached to the frame and the sewing machine is mounted on rollers, so that the machine moves instead of the quilt. Kind of like driving a car. You guide the machine as it sews.
Today I took two quilts over to the shop for my first try and Wendy offered to come along as moral support and to help me get the quilts onto the frame. A true friend! I just did a random swirl pattern of stitching all over the quilts as a beginner. It's not that easy to drive the machine through loops and swirls and make them look even and random at the same time. I got two smaller sized quilts done in 3 1/2 hours! The first one I did was a quilt top I've had done for over a year. (Yes, Sarah, it's finally done!)
And the other is a quilt top I posted a picture of a couple of posts ago, and now I have quilted.
The back:
I like the idea of being able to make a whole quilt from start to finish. It's actually quite liberating besides being less expensive than paying someone else to quilt it for you. I certainly don't have the artistic talent that my current quilt lady has, but for now I am satisfied. And I think my mother would be too.
4 comments:
Way to go Moomsie! Those look really good!
Also, the large floral pattern on that first quilt kind of reminds me of those dark blue couches that were in our living room at the old house.
You are so talented! I learned to quilt 3 years ago and love it. Of course, I haven't done much (any?) at all since the boys were born. Sharon used to manage a quilt store that had a couple of long arm machines. It's NOT easy so I'm very impressed! Way to go!
Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice! Way to go. One thing I always admired about Grandma was that she loved learning new things. That's a trait that I see in you. I hope I have/get it.
Congrats! It's wonderful to finish a project like that .. and they turned out beautiful. My brother in laws and father in law own a company in utah called Quilt EZ. http://www.quilt-ez.com/ezstore/
They make quilting templates and have recently created a robot that will control the arm of the sewing machine so you can set it and walk away and it quilts for you. Pretty fancy if you ask me.
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