Kwiltr Posted November 15, 2016 Report Share Posted November 15, 2016 I just finished this little quilt, the first off of my new Lenni that has been together about a week. Man, a little stressful and certainly not perfect! I volunteer to quilt for a group of local ladies who make quilts that are donated to Sick Kids Hospitals near us. This quilt was pieced by one of those ladies. Often times they are challenging in that I am given the sandwich materials that aren't very generous, I,e. Barely enough. This was one of them and an extra challenge for me trying it first on my Lenni. It also came with a polyester batting, also not something I had worked with in years and never in machine quilting. The backing was 2" longer than the quilt top and 4" wider. So I basically added a temporary muslin border of 4" all the way around to give me enough to load it. The batting was barely the size of the top :-(. Being new to this whole longarm game, I decided to float the top so I'd have a bit more control over the sandwich seeing as I had to maneuver the batting and top within the scant limits I had to work with. Some of the pieced 2" square sections had a bit of excess within the section, so I had to try and control that too. Fortunately the quilt measured out fairly square on the outside, but I still got a few poofs here and there and a bit of distortion at the end, that I am just thankful wasn't any worse, considering my lack of experience and everything else. I used straight pins to baste the sandwich to try and maintain some integrity while I ditched around the rectangles of squares and basted the outside edge of the top. It seemed to work. I even removed the quilt and turned it so I could quilt the long borders in one go. I admit to winging it on these little quilts as I don't like to mark them, so you may notice pattern inconsistencies when my mind wanders and I kinda make it up as I go! Having come over from quilting on my Sweet 16, I'm finding it a challenge to learn the how to of the longarm process, and hope I'll get as comfortable with it. There is more to it than meets the eye ;-) ! Thanks for taking a look! K Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InesR Posted November 15, 2016 Report Share Posted November 15, 2016 I think it looks very nice. Great tip about adding the muslin extenders! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mercedes Posted November 15, 2016 Report Share Posted November 15, 2016 Nice job! You may want to try to educate those making the quilts on size of backing, etc. that's needed for long quilting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
srichardson Posted November 15, 2016 Report Share Posted November 15, 2016 You did a great job and some little person will surely appreciate the quilt. Kids don't see or care about little imperfections that may or may not exist! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liam Posted November 15, 2016 Report Share Posted November 15, 2016 Congratulations on your first quilt on your new Lenni !! You did a great job! Unless your the Quilt Police, no one will ever notice little imperfections, especially kids. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cagey Posted November 15, 2016 Report Share Posted November 15, 2016 It looks outstanding. Plus, if you did not pre-wash your fabric, a lot of "poofs" (couldn't see them in pictures) will wash away. Great job. Cagey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mamu Posted November 15, 2016 Report Share Posted November 15, 2016 It looks lovely One thing I did for my quilt friends was I wrote down and printed off some guidelines on what was needed for a quilt to be quilted on a longarm machine. I gave this out to all the ladies and when I found a quilt that had 'issues' I included this guideline with the quilt when I gave it back. This really helped alot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lisae Posted November 15, 2016 Report Share Posted November 15, 2016 Good job, it looks great! Congrats on your first quilt of many on Lenni! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iquiltit Posted November 15, 2016 Report Share Posted November 15, 2016 Looks great to me. Some Kid will love having their own blankie. Carol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deb in the Mtns Posted November 15, 2016 Report Share Posted November 15, 2016 Awesome work - I'm not brave enough to do freehand for anyone else yet. :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IBQLTN2 Posted November 15, 2016 Report Share Posted November 15, 2016 Great job. I have had my Lenni for 8 years and she has performed wonderfully. You will get very attached to her as you do many more beautiful quilts. Great Job Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kwiltr Posted November 15, 2016 Author Report Share Posted November 15, 2016 Thanks for the great comments and encouragement. This forum has helped immeasurably, to get me up and running! Good idea to make a handout for my Kids Quilt group, as I don't always get to talk to them when I'm picking up or dropping off quilts. They run on donations of funds and fabric, so they are understandibly frugal in their use of resources, so the reusable muslin extensions help with that. I really enjoy doing the little quilts up. The group makes up some really fun little quilts, and since I don't have any grandchildren yet, I still get to indulge in some quilts for kids :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tootsquilts Posted November 16, 2016 Report Share Posted November 16, 2016 Looks great to me too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quilta93 Posted November 17, 2016 Report Share Posted November 17, 2016 You did a great job! That's a good tip to use a temporary muslin border. Deb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeidiP Posted November 17, 2016 Report Share Posted November 17, 2016 Nice quilting! You're off to a good start! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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