My daughter had sent me the focus fabric from Hawaii. She had already cut many prints into squares (Thanks, sweetie, that gives me a jump start on other tops!) I chose this pattern because it made the blocks easily adaptable.
I really wanted to finish this on my longarm. I painstakingly loaded it on my rollers, a process than can literally take an hour and leave me with sore fingertips, after using almost 100 straight pins to secure the pieced top and the backing fabric. All the while praying I've got everything lined up just right so I won't have to adjust anything.
Longarms can be tricky (I call it picky) machines. I tried and tried but I just couldn't get my tension correct and ended up pulling out many attempts to get this little bugger quilted. Frustrated, I removed it from my long arm and there it layed, pinned, for a long, long time.
I knew I could quilt it on my Bernina, but I'd have to make room on the table to work the fabric through the machine. Since I couldn't use the longarm's computer to help create an attractive stitch, it took me a long time to decide how to quilt it and bring some flow to the pattern. I started by topstitching the bird blocks.
Not sure that I wanted to do an all-over pattern in the posts, I studied the quilt for, again, a long, long time. I decided. I was just going to try one or two blocks where I carried through the angle created by the bird blocks. It was a lot of starts and stops but I am really happy with the way it turned out. I didn't name it until it was completed and I could see the "XOXOX"! I hope it warms my grandson for many years with it!
I really wanted to finish this on my longarm. I painstakingly loaded it on my rollers, a process than can literally take an hour and leave me with sore fingertips, after using almost 100 straight pins to secure the pieced top and the backing fabric. All the while praying I've got everything lined up just right so I won't have to adjust anything.
Longarms can be tricky (I call it picky) machines. I tried and tried but I just couldn't get my tension correct and ended up pulling out many attempts to get this little bugger quilted. Frustrated, I removed it from my long arm and there it layed, pinned, for a long, long time.
I knew I could quilt it on my Bernina, but I'd have to make room on the table to work the fabric through the machine. Since I couldn't use the longarm's computer to help create an attractive stitch, it took me a long time to decide how to quilt it and bring some flow to the pattern. I started by topstitching the bird blocks.
Not sure that I wanted to do an all-over pattern in the posts, I studied the quilt for, again, a long, long time. I decided. I was just going to try one or two blocks where I carried through the angle created by the bird blocks. It was a lot of starts and stops but I am really happy with the way it turned out. I didn't name it until it was completed and I could see the "XOXOX"! I hope it warms my grandson for many years with it!
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