My First Longarm Quilts

I have been busy quilting!  (I do have all those UFO/WIPs, right?)  I decided that to start I would do a pantograph design. After some fits and starts and a lot of frustration, I finally figured out how to run the longarm machine.  I must say, I think I'm getting fantastic results!  And I'm learning a lot.  

I made this quilt top in the late 1990s.  I honestly had forgotten all about it.  It was one of the first quilts I made and that was really obvious when I pulled it out of storage.  The seams were really wavy and some had holes where I hadn't lined up the points properly.  Plus, the blue fabric is denim and the white borders are really cheap muslin.  I fixed all the holey seams but there wasn't much I could do about the wavy piecing unless I redid the entire thing.  No thanks!  My son took a liking to this top, so he helped me pick out backing fabric.  For this one, we used an inexpensive print from JoAnn.  I used the leftover backing for binding.  I machine stitched the binding, which is something I don't usually do since I love hand-sewing binding.  I used a polyester batting that I've had in my stash forever.  You can see the fold lines in the quilt already with this batting.  Good enough for this project though!  The thread I used is So Fine 50 wt. by Superior Threads.  Lovely thread! 


My second longarm project is one I'm really excited about!  This is a quilt using Bonnie & Camille's Bliss fabric line from around 2010.  It was their third line for Moda.  I was really thrilled when I found not only the top, but also matching backing and binding in my stash!  I used a cotton batting by Pellon for this one and stuck with the So Fine 50 wt. by Superior Threads, just in off white instead of the white I used for the first quilt.  I highly recommend Superior Threads!  Great thread, great customer service.  Anyway, I'm hand stitching the binding on this one, so I'm not quite done yet.  This is a selfish sewing project--it's for me!!








No comments