Some Quilting Finishes

I've been keeping quite busy, although you wouldn't know it looking at the blog lately.  A bit quiet.

I've machine quilted 3 quilts for customers in the last few weeks.  Britney made this adorable pinwheel baby quilt for her friend.  She wanted basic loopy quilting that would make the quilt all nice and snuggly after washing.

 I loved the colors in this quilt.  I don't remember the name of the fabric, unfortunately.  She did a really  nice job with her piecing, it was very accurate and square.

This is Julie's quilt, another pinwheel variation.  I LOVE this pattern.  The twisted pinwheels broken up by the lattice are just so cute!

 This was the one from the last post that I had to unpick a lot on, but it turned out really well in the end.

Swirls close-up:

You can see the quilting even better on the back.  I match my bobbin thread to my top thread to avoid "pokies," so it shows up really well.

This last one was made by Andrea and will be going to a burn unit victim at one of our local hospitals.  Sorry the pics are blurry.

I quilted this one with loops and stars.

I think it turned out well!

Last year I started teaching the quilting classes at my local JoAnn's.  I enjoyed it, but I had to purchase supplies to make class samples for all of the projects, and not many people signed up for the classes, so I actually lost money doing it some months.  After about 6 months I stopped teaching all of the classes, and instead switched to teaching a "trend" class, which means I get to choose the project.  I decided that for January and February I'd like to teach a class on basic free-motion quilting.  It felt so liberating for me to be able to finish my own quilts, rather than paying a longarmer to do them for me.  I'll admit I find FMQ on a domestic sewing machine VERY difficult, and haven't done it very much.  In fact I only did two FMQ quilts on my DSM before buying my frame.  Ha.  Still, it's liberating.

So this picture shows why I prefer FMQ with a machine mounted on a frame, whether a longarm or shortarm like mine.  This is my sample for my Jan/Feb class.  I used a darker thread so it would show better, but I'm thinking a matching thread may have been a much better idea. =)

Maybe I should have cheated and made my sample on my frame--it certainly would have looked better!  I have SUCH a hard time moving my machine smoothly when I FMQ.  I have untold respect for people who can quilt well on a DSM.  I know it gets better with practice, and I didn't really give myself a chance to practice, but I'm so glad I have my little quilting machine now.  I love it.

Yeah, this quilting is pretty dismal.  DISMAL!  If by any small miracle anyone even signs up for my class, I hope they find FMQ liberating as well, even if it's tricky to do well.

I just have to laugh at myself about this one.  Oh well.  I'm pretty sure I'm not really qualified to teach this stuff.  That's why it's "basics," right?