Another Finish

My Kaleidoscope quilt has been finished for several weeks now and resides on my bed. I love it and my DH loves it. My Longarm quilting still needs to be perfected, but the only way that's going to happen is by doing. (This is the 3rd quilt I've done on my Longarm). It's hard to see the quilting from the front of the quilt because the Kaleidoscope (K) blocks are so busy. When I arrived at the part of quilting the K blocks I was in quite a dilemma because I didn't want to take away from the K design. So, I just went with it and followed a design pattern from the K block itself, resulting in each block being quilted differently based on the K design of that block. So...I quilted and quilted and quilted for what seemed like forever thinking I would never get to the end of this king sized quilt. 

Well....I didn't know what was happening on the reverse of the quilt...when I unrolled it from the frame this is what I discovered....

My quilt is now reversible. I wasn't even thinking about the back of the quilt! I was totally blown away. Now,  for you expert quilters, this may be nothing to you, but after seeing the reverse of my quilt I was totally impressed with myself!

Every single block is different...just like on the front!

Here is a partial view of the front...on my bed. I used my serger to create a wave stitch for the binding. I totally dislike doing traditional binding and call my methods "Binding without Boundaries" or maybe "No Boundaries for Bindings".

I don't want this post to get too long so I'll do another post later about my experimentation with bindings...especially my serger method. I would love to put together some serger tutorials...there is so much that can be done with the serger in general and combined with quilting. I've even done a mitered border using my serger! Maybe tutorials are in my future (More to come on that too).

Thanks for visiting! Have a blessed day!

Happy Living! Happy Quilting!

Working in EQ7 and EQStitch

I've not done any quilting or sewing for the past week and a half but I have been intensely exploring my EQ7 and EQStitch programs.

I've had EQ7 for about a year now and have only just piddled with it here and there, only making it through about 4 of the many PDF lessons...then I wanted the new EQStitch program since I love to do embroidery. I couldn't justify buying EQStitch because of my piddling status with EQ7...but I bought it anyway...especially since it was 20% off from the The Electric Quilt Company web site.

Well I dived in...first doing ALL the PDF lessons in EQ7(which took me an entire week of studying the lessons and then exploring the program on my own). What I've found out is that it's a powerful and amazing program that I'm going to need to explore and play with quite often! For my first major project, I'm working on a stacked Flag wall hanging. I got the idea from a painting I saw last weekend when we were out to dinner. (Pics forthcoming in another blog post). But that's what it takes... exploring and practice, exploring and practice and time, time, time to do it.

So after living with EQ7 for a week I dived into the EQStitch program...a powerful and amazing embroidery digitizing program for the beginner or intermediate embroiderer. (EQStitch is a plug-in for EQ7 so you need to have EQ7 to use EQStitch). I completed ALL the PDF lessons plus the lessons from the workbook "Learning EQStitch".  

Here are some of my creations from the PDF lessons and the workbook.

This cat is from the EQ7 Block library that I converted into an embroidery design that can be stitched out.

Here is the same block design that can be used as a machine applique. The text can also be stitched out.

Ah...lovely hearts. These hearts were created using one of the awesome drawing tools...easy peasy! Pick your fill stitch and click in the center of the hearts... pick your outline stitch and click on the outline of the heart...Ta Da...that's it! Then just pick your colors and click, click, then save in your embroidery machine format.

These are some other projects I created. The potted flower and star are applique designs that I actually created from scratch using the drawing tools. The wreathmaker tool is really awesome. I freehand drew a flower, tweaked it with the awesome drawing tools, clicked the wreathmaker tool, set my parameters and wa-la...a design that can be made into a stencil, motif, or appliqued or machine embroidered.

The designs and uses are unlimited!

I also found Beaquilter who has posted several tutorials on EQ7 that have been quite helpful to me.

It has been fun playing around in the program, now I'm ready to create and sew...and experiment more with the program. Wish me luck!

Thanks for stopping by. I love to read your comments!

Happy Living! Happy Quilting!

What a Busy Month May Has Been!

 It has been such a busy month! 

Not with quilting, but life in general... sorta (I know something to do with quilting is in there somewhere). Our one and only child graduated with Honors from UGA (University of Georgia at Athens) on May 10th. She was one of 5,200 students.  Wow...and I thought her high school graduation was big.  We entertained relatives that weekend and we all had such great family time! I thought I was going to have a hard time with walking and stairs since I'm still recovering from total knee replacement surgery but thank goodness for our handicapped laws. There were ramps, elevators, and escalators throughout the entire stadium....not to mention the handicapped parking. (Thanks to all who came before me that fought for handicapped requirements. It would have been difficult for me to attend if not for these amenities. (Please respect handicapped parking!...okay I'm done with that)).

Before the procession.....

After the procession....

The ceremony was rather long though...2.5 hours with all the speakers, but we were rewarded with a fireworks show at the end. 

I've also been planting some flowers...well, my DH has...All I did was hand him the flowers and supervise.

We planted some Vinca and then my Sunflower seeds started growing also. These I will have to separate.

These little Sunflower plants were more properly placed. It should be pretty with the Vinca surrounding the Sunflowers.

My dwarf Hydrangea is also blooming. I love the blue color!

I'll post before and after pics once the flowers have grown some.

Now it just needs to rain!

Thanks for stopping by. What have you planted this Spring?

Happy Living! Happy Quilting!