Late to the Party

Happy December! At the last minute last Sunday evening, my willpower gave out and I decided to join Bonnie Hunter's Good Fortune Mystery Quilt. I have never made one of her mystery quilts before, but I have used many of her free patterns. You can find all the information here:

https://quiltville.blogspot.com/2018/12/mystery-monday-link-up-part-2.html

I am always a little wary of mystery quilts, but I do love all of Bonnie's scrappy designs and thorough  directions. Three things pushed me to join in: 

1. it is only going to finish at 72x72 (this is small for Bonnie)

2. I have plenty of all the colors she is using in my stash and won't need to buy anything for the top

3. If I don't like it I will donate it to some worthy cause

I was able to complete all the many four patches and I ironed them the way Bonnie showed--a new method for me. I get all my blue half square triangles done too--I just need to trim them up this evening.

I met my friend and machine quilter extraordinaire, Glenn, yesterday. He quilted my Jumping Jacks Quilt. I want to surprise my daughter with this when she gets home from London in less than two weeks. We settled on a large floral design for it. I took a couple of pictures of it loaded on the machine. This is NOT a long arm machine. It is a professional quilting machine where quilts are clamped onto frame and the frame slides into the machine. It is all computerized and the frame moves vertically and the quilting head of the machine moves horizontally. The machine itself is enormous, but you also have to have 10+ feet of clearance to slide the frame and in and out! You also have to crawl under it to change bobbins and check your tension.

The quilt is about 72x85 inches. After putting it onto the frame which took about 30 minutes, it only took the machine about an hour and 30 minutes to quilt it--it has over 45,000 stitches in it! Two more of my quilts are awaiting quilting. I brought home a large queen sized quilt to bind for his mom and a small wall hanging too--a nice trade!

I purchased some Bonnie and Camille stripes for binding on Black Friday and they arrived this past Friday--just in time!

The quilting is big and loopy flowers and leaves. I will be cuddling under it and stitching down the binding after dinner tonight.

https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2018/12/slow-sunday-stitching.html

We had about three inches of snow on Friday night and a little more today. Cold weather means comfort food at my house! I made white bean and chicken chili with cornbread last night and I am making meatloaf and potatoes tonight. My Fat Eighth Fruitcake Quilt gets posted tomorrow--it was also quilted on this machine with this design, but it is on a smaller scale. Come back tomorrow to check it out!