Friday, November 21, 2014

Practice Makes Perfect

This week I quilted and bound three small quilt tops that I've had in my sewing closet, two of them for quite awhile. Wondering why I was so inspired?
 I've been getting to know the Imperial Quilting Frame and Viking Mega Quilter that were gifted to me last month. Sadly, my quilting friend, Sharon, passed away last spring after a long battle with breast cancer. When I inquired about purchasing her frame and machine I was told that it was Sharon's wish that they not be sold, but given away. Of course, I was shocked as well as thrilled. When they came to live at my house, I, in turn, gifted my older wooden frame and Juki machine to my friend, Vicki, who has been wanting a way to quilt her own projects. Now we are both learning new skills!
 Besides being able to quilt larger quilts on a stable metal frame, the machine came with a Quilter's Cruise Control which is a stitch regulator allowing me to have consistent stitch size regardless of the speed. The control sort of dangles from the back of the Mega Quilter and there's been a little bit of a learning curve in using it. If any of you have experience with this control and can suggest a better way to mount it, please let me know.
  Quilting the three small tops was a great way to familiarize myself with the machine and frame. My mom used to say that "three's a charm" and, sure enough, by the third quilt, I was feeling pretty comfortable. I was really happy with the vine and leaf design that I tried out also.
 Both nine-patch quilts were pieced as leader/ender projects and, hopefully, will be given to wheel chair patients in Nepal. The lavender quilt was pieced by someone else and I finished it. It will be donated through my quilt guild to a child living at Safe Home.
Moose has been practicing new skills also! My husband is teaching him to retrieve the newspaper in the mornings. Somedays, it's quite a mouthful for the little guy!
 He's sure proud of himself!

10 comments:

  1. Terrific that you have such a lovely story to have such a lovely tool for quilting! And three quilts is a stupendous number; they all look great. Congratulations on your newest member of your quilting household!

    Elizabeth

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  2. Perhaps you could teach Moose to hold the cruise control out of the way!? Enjoying learning to use your wonderful machine. I'm sure Sharon would be proud of your efforts too!

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  3. How wonderful! Enjoy all that practicing. It's looking like you're a natural ; )

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  4. Oh, I'm so tickled for you to have that wonderful new, metal quilting frame! I know you'd been thinking of something different for a long time. Sounds like it's the perfect way to go... is it? It's great that you could work on three quilts consecutively, as I'm sure it helped build your comfort and confidence with the new set-up. Do you like the regulator on it? You're very generous with your quiltmaking. I'm proud to know someone who's as giving as you are.

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  5. What a wonderful friend . . . I'm sure you'll think of her often as you play and learn with your new machine. Working on several in a row was a great strategy to keep the momentum of learning and improving going. I must also say I'm jealous too since I've been struggling to quilt a top on my domestic machine this week. It would be so nice to see where I'm going and not have to shove all that quilt under my little harp space.

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  6. I was so interested to read your post. I have a Viking Mega Quilter and a friend of mine is gifting me a Grace frame this week. I am going to try it out and see how it goes. Where do you have yours set up?

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  7. What a special gift. Your work looks wonderful. Enjoy learning something new.

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  8. Wow! Looks like you're a quick learner. Enjoy your new machine. ;)

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  9. Those are three gorgeous quilts! So sorry about your friend.

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  10. What a special gift. Your quilts look beautiful--looks like you picking up machine quilting skills quickly.

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