My favorite assistant!

Well Little Man was over this weekend for a sleepover at Nana's and Grandpa's. Trying to get him to work on a project for his Momma was a NO GO! He was quite happy to be my assistant though! Here he is holding up my latest project! Pretty good assisting for a 3-year old!

This is the baby quit for my cousin in Hungary. By the time Canada Post will get it there, I am sure the baby will be a year old! Nevermind...it will still be cuddled! This is the first project that I really practiced my free motion quilting on. Here's a closeup of some of the stiches. The only one that I actually drew on was the "A" outline. It sure gave me more confidence with each triangle that I did. A good wash gave it the super-soft cuddle to it and Little Man gave it an extra cuddle since it was going to one of his cousins!

I used 100% Egyption cotton in the bobbin and the top. One thing I did notice was a whole lot of lint build-up. I had to clean out the machine twice and re-thread the machine twice. The way it stitched was great. Some of the designs were super easy and yet some of the others not so great. I think that practice will improve my stitching somewhat. It was worth taking the free-motion class with Lorraine Stangness. It sure took the fear out of free-motion. Now I get to experiment with different threads and needles. Not too crazy though! One step at a time. The pattern is Chop Sticks by Jaybird quilts.

Free Motion Quilting Here We Come!

Saturday I finally found myself back in a class -- after so many years! I think my first class was in 1996 and then a hand quilting class followed. That was it! The rest of my quilting experience has been by trial and error, the purchase of way too many magazines, and the books! So finally, I decided that I couldn't do it all on my own! I so admire those who can! I have ordered CD's and own numerous "free motion" books and have read into the wee hours trying to figure out how I could do it. What I discovered was I needed hands-on and someone over my shoulder telling me what I was doing wrong. Along Came Quilting was hosting Lorraine Stangness with a free motion class for a Saturday. I paid for the class and waited patiently!

Lorraine's class was so enjoyable and her instructions in class (and her book)were so easy to follow! We had lots of time to practice the new stitches and great feedback from her. The only comment the majority of us had was it would have been nice to have a morning class and then head home for the week to practice and then come back the following Saturday for another morning. The full day class was exhaustive, but so worth it! Lorraine is an amazing teacher and hope that she has more classes to come! Here's a sample of my "practice" squares. You can tell that I need LOTS of practice! I'm not so terrified and look forward to practicing!

After practicing again today, I started quilting a baby quilt that is to head overseas. Of course, I had an instant helper! Take a look:

When quilting gets to THIS point, you have to shut the machine down and call it a day! Happy quilting everyone!