It’s been pretty busy in my little corner of the world. We’ve had a lot of rainy, stormy weather which limited my time on the longarm, but gave me time to tackle other things that I needed to get done. Boring stuff, like laundry and bills and cleaning. I don’t know about you, but those things are NOT on my list of things I want to do. But I always feel better when they are finished, so that’s a bonus I guess! 🙂
I spent two days last week in a ProStitcher class. It was time well spent; I learned more about some of the features that will make using the robotics more efficient. Even better, I got to hang out with my friend Julie of Pink Doxies fame:
The class was held at our local quilt shop, and of course I had to do a little shopping while I was there. And I found the cutest little wool pincushion kits.
The kits are from Local Farm Girl, and I adore the packaging. I mean, look at that little fruit basket full of wool goodness! Even better, the kit included everything needle to make the pincushion, right down to the needles and the crushed walnut shells. How cool is that? I brought 3 of these kits home with me.
I couldn’t wait to get started on one so I dropped everything and ripped one of those sweeet baskets open.
This is my finished pincushion:
I think it’s adorable! I’m not great with embroidery stitches, but I love hand work. In this case Google is a great friend. She tells me how to make any embroidery stitch I want. Thank goodness for Google!
I have two more kits and have already started on the second one. Sewing circles is a bit challenging for me, so I hope these next ones look better. Practice, practice, practice – right?
The pincushions were a squirrel project from what I currently have loaded on my frame:
I am enjoying this quilt SO much! It belongs to Cindy, who I met when she took my beginning quilting class. Since then she has taken several classes at the shop and has been making beautiful quilts. This particular one uses Stonehenge fabric and it is stunning.
Right now I am doing all the background quilting and the stitch in the ditch. I am using Glide 60 thread in a color that blends with the background. It’s a fabulous thread. I’ve only had one thread break, and that was a bobbin problem, not a thread problem.
After I finish the background fill I will go back and quilt the borders (there are two) and the stars. I’ll be using a gold thread that shines to help highlight the stars and the border fabrics. I haven’t decided yet if there will be stitching in the little print boxes. I like that they poof, but it may be too much. I’ll make that decision once I start on the stars.
And just for fun, here’s another shot with the morning sun highlighting the texture. You know me, I’m all about texture!
So that is what I’ll be working on this week. The plan is to get Cindy’s quilt finished; another custom quilt is waiting in the wings. And maybe I’ll find time to work on another pincushion – it’s so satisfying to have hand work when I need a break from standing in front of the longarm.
Now it’s time for you to share your projects for Main Crush Monday. What has you excited to be in your sewing space? You can link up any blog post, Instagram or Flickr pic – here’s how:
Gosh, your quilting is gorgeous! About how many hours do you have to put into a custom quilting job like that? It’s stunning. I dreamed of owning a longarm for years, but now I’ve accepted that fmqing on my Janome is good enough. It gives me great pleasure, and I never intended on making it a business. Thought I could do one customer quilt a month to help pay for it, but that’s all. Kind of an expensive investment for personal use!
Oh that quilt is gorgeous and made even more so with your quilting. I am learning on my new one (simply sixteen) and am intrigued by the tape measure on your rail….can you tell me more about that? Haven’t yet invested in prostitcher, but its on my list. I don’t do customer quilts and it is a smaller frame, but I think it will still be something I want in the the near future! I have to mark this picture as one to keep in mind for quilting designs – it is gorgeous.
That quilting is beautiful! I love the texture shot. Good eye.
like yourself Beth, Julie is another friend “in my computer”. Lovely to see you both having fun together. I love your little pincushions. I have some Heather Ross fabric set aside to make pincushions, I must get my act together!
I adore your pin cushion, and I’m super jealous that you got to hang out with Julie in class! The custom quilt on your frame is looking fabulous. Judi Madsen told us that she’s using and loving 60 weight Glide when we took her workshops in Paducah, but I’ve only used the 40 weight Glide so far. SO many threads out there to try these days, I just can’t keep up with all of them!! I actually need to get with APQS Tech Support and work out some of the kinks with my longarm before I can start experimenting with other threads. Something weird is going on with my upper thread tension to where it’s super tight even when the tension discs are so loose that they JINGLE and barely touch, even though the thread doesn’t seem to be hanging up on anything on the way from the cone through the thread guides on the way to the tension device. Very bizarre.
Beautiful quilt and I love how you are quilting it. The pincushion baskets are cute.
Inspiring! A great squirrel and lovely quilting.
Your quilting is always gorgeous!!! The pin cushions are so sweet! I totally understand dropping everything to make one…or two…or three!
Beth – so fun to see you and Julie hanging out together! Your quilting is gorgeous on that quilt – great creativity to bring it all together. Can’t wait to see the finish!
Hi Beth! What a cute little pincushion. Those kits are packaged so cleverly. It would make me want to buy one just to see all the cool stuff inside. Your quilting looks fabulous! I am glad you are able to take a class to learn more about your new machine – that sounds like time well spent to me. ~smile~ Roseanne
I love those kind of pin cushions I will have to look and see if I can find those kits so cute! – the quilting is nice too 🙂
No main crush for me; I’ve been nursing a messed up back this weekend, so there was no sewing at all. Those little wool kits are so cute! I love wool, because it’s so forgiving. You don’t have to be really good at the stitches. It looks great when you are finished! Oh my, that quilt is gorgeous, and I love the quilting you are doing. Fun that you “doxie girls” got to hang out together!
Very fun packaging with those pin cushion kits. Your first one turned out beautifully. Gorgeous, gorgeous quilting. Hopefully the worst of the stormy weather is over and we’ll all be able to sew a bit more without the fear of power failures.
Cute pincushion! And I loooove texture too, and your quilting is so beautiful!
OMG, your quilting is awesome!!!