Saturday, January 14, 2012

A quilt in a day …. ha ha ha

Hi all,

I love making big quilts but I have this thing about having to make complicated time consuming patterns. So a lot of my quilts actually end up taking years to complete because of interruptions and lack of motivation.

I think the lack of motivation comes from not being able to afford to have it quilted professionally and not wanting to struggle trying to do it myself on my little machine.

Now that I am looking after my SIL’s longarm quilting setup I think I might be able to get some of those quilts off my wish list and actually make them! Not to mention quilting the tops I have sitting around….here is a picture of my practice stippling…

I am soooo happy with it, I have never been able to master stippling on my machine but with the longarm it just seems to happen!

Last weekend I was hugely motivated to make a quilt quickly…ha ha! I gave myself 24 hours to finish the top but I do have little kidlets and the weather was not in my favour – on Sunday it got sooo hot I had to give up sewing and couldn’t sew again for about 4 days! My sewing area is at the western end of our house and is poorly insulated so it gets HOT….and it is not nice sewing and sweating all over the fabric!

Today, a week after I started, I finished the top!

The pattern is Amy Butler’s Lark Quilt. I did make changes though, I can’t just sew up a pattern! I have to alter it!

The changes weren’t too drastic, I used a Sunkissed layer cake and didn’t want wastage so I made my strips 10” wide instead of 8 1/2”. Which also gave me a queen sized quilt rather than a double!

The quilt top is 85” square.

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PS. Don’t forget to enter the 3rd giveaway if you haven’t done so already! Leave a comment on the giveaway post and I will draw the winner on Wednesday.

15 comments:

Oops-Lah said...

A quilt a day or a quilt a week, who cares ;). It's a beautiful quilt and I'm assuming you are going to quilt it with your SIL's fancy longarm quilting machine as you've practices on it already (and it looks awesome by the way).

Anonymous said...

Looking great, well done

Leanne said...

Love the Lark/Sunkissed quilt. And great job on the longarm. It's not that easy to get used to. Maybe your SIL wont get it back??

Karen said...

I agree that finishing the top is more important than the time factor. You need to invest in a pedestal fan for your sewing space. Just having the air circulating makes a big difference to how hot it feels.
Envy you being able to look after SIL's long arm. Practice piece is looking good. So there will be more finishes in the future, this is a good thing.

Wendy said...

I think a week is pretty amazing to finish a queen sized quilt in!! It looks fantastic.

barcord said...

wow. Like it......much.

RobynLouise said...

The practice stippling looks great as does the Lark Quilt.
Cheers, Robyn

Michelle May-The Raspberry Rabbits said...

Good job with the stippling and congat's on your quilt! It's wonderful!

Janet said...

Your quilt looks fabulous and so does the stippling via the longarm. Maybe now that you've mastered it, think of the quilts you could finish.

Kathy S. said...

Congrats on a BIG finish! I never can follow just the pattern either. Bigger is better... Great job.

Marci Girl said...

Congrats on your finish, it is beautiful!

Katy Cameron said...

Hey, a week is still pretty damn speedy to me! Well done :o)

Habibti at Home said...

It is beautiful! and finished so quickly for such a huge quilt top! Great project!

Quiltjane said...

Fantastic quilt to piece quickly. You will have so much fun with your SIL's quilting machine.

Michelle said...

Wow, that is a neat quilt!