Sewing Marathon

I watched a tutorial on YouTube about the Chip N' Dip quilt. Of course, I had to try it. Two days later, the quilt top was made. I have a large Rubbermaid bin of 2 1/2" strips and a 5 gallon bucket of 2 1/2" squares. I've been cutting fabric into various sizes and shapes for more than twenty years, so there is an abundant supply. After I made this quilt top, it didn't look like the fabric diminished at all, the bins were just as full as when I started. Fabric must breed and multiply when no one is looking. I threw the quilt top on the fence to take the picture but the wind caught an edge and turned it. Professional photographer, I am not. :) There is some backing fabric due to arrive in the mail for this project.

Repairing A Quilt

I made this hand-quilted Log Cabin quilt in 1990. Over the years, it has received several repairs in the form of zig-zagging. We have the quilt at the cabin and use it underneath a top quilt on the bed. It's got to the point where the fabric is fragile and is splitting in many places. I brought the quilt home and put it on the longarm machine. Machine quilting over top of hand quilting would probably be considered blasphemy. It was either that or retire it completely. I quilted all-over loops to strengthen the seams and fabric. The machine was in a bad mood and the thread broke countless times, but I persevered. Now the quilt is in the washing machine, ready for next summer at the cabin.

I used the glide foot on the machine so it wouldn't catch the openings in the fabric. It worked like a charm.

Above: what the quilt looked like before I started working on it.

Most people would just send a quilt like this to the landfill. I didn't want to do that because it was the first Log Cabin quilt that I made and it took 9 months to hand-quilt. Sentimental value.

"Barn Swallows" Baby Quilt

The quilt was finished just in time, the baby was born yesterday. Welcome to the world, little one! This one is for a long-time family friend. I wondered what pattern would be suitable, then came up with the "Barn Swallows" idea from watching "Conquering Mount Scrapmore with Brenda". My blocks are a different layout than the tutorial.

Back In The Saddle Again

I posted the same title of a blog post one year ago. After I get back from the summer cabin, it takes some work to get everything put away and all the laundry and chores done. Now I can load some quilts onto Matilda, the longarm. The one that's on there today belongs to Linda H. I hope she doesn't notice a little jog in the stitching where I had a coughing fit all of a sudden. Coughing and quilting on a longarm machine don't work together very well. :)