Here is the latest quilt finished. This was a mystery quilt from Quiltingboard.com. I had no idea what the pattern was going to be til the very end. I think my color combinations came out great!

 Here's a close up of the red Friendship star. All the stars were done like this, but it really stands out on the red ones.

 I know you can't see this really well, but there's a feathered wreath in all of these blocks.

 Here's a shot of the side & border. As another longarmer pointed out, had I done a different design here, it wouldn't have near the impact this one did.

A view of the back. The quilting actually shows better on the back than the front.
I'm so pleased with how this quilt turned out!
While I was hand stitching the back of the binding, I was looking at all that quilting & really feeling proud of myself for accomplishing all of this freehand. Another thought was that a year ago I had rented time on the LQS's very simple longarm & all I could do was meander, & it wasn't even that good! Look how far I've come in just under a year!  How am I going to improve on this? Where will my talents take me in 2013? Well, I think my goal for 2013 is to put a quilt into a major show for 2014! What do you think?

Here is the latest quilt to come off of Queenie. It's a twin size, simple Irish Chain quilt that was started with leftovers from a previous project.  Since I'm always looking to expand my quilting abilities, I took a new class on Craftsy.com from the awesome Kimmy Brunner!
Craftsy.com is a fantastic medium for learning. Once you purchase one of their classes, it's viewable forever! Kimmy's class is one of the newest available on there & well worth the time & money spent for it if you want to do template work. She breaks everything down into "baby steps" so you can understand what you're doing. By the time you get to the end of the lesson, you have more than a working knowledge of how to do the lesson & some confidence to do it.
I've been following Kimmy for awhile now, & have all of her DVD's. If you are new to longarming, her beginning DVD is a MUST have! I'm self taught at just about everything quilting. After getting her beginning DVD & following her directions & suggestions, I find that my quilts are coming off the frame just as square as when I loaded them. I'm not having issues with puckers any longer, nor are some of the other issues I've had cropping up. It's amazing what a little direction can accomplish! And, it only added a few more minutes to accomplish!
This wasn't the original design I had chosen for this quilt, but operator error caused me to rip all of that out & start over. As I said, I've got all of Kimmy's DVD's, & one that I was going for was her Twirly Whirly feathers. But, tension issues abounded for some reason & I had to rip it all out, so I changed to this one instead. Glad I did, because it came out fantastic!

Whew! The quilt show for our local guild is over for another year! What a great time we had, but a lot of work. A lot of beautiful quilts took home some pretty prestigious ribbons too!  Yes, I did get ribbons on two of the quilts I entered. Got a 3rd place ribbon for "French Braid" & an Honorable Mention for "Carpenter Star meets Bali".  Texas's Butterfly Ballet didn't win anything, but the category had so few entries that they lumped them into small quilts, so it didn't fair with the others that were larger.
Now that I can breathe again, it's back to the drawing board, so to speak. After looking at the ribbon winners, & talking to the people who did the quilting on them, I think I've got a bit of a handle on what the judge wants, so I will make sure next years quilt really stands out! What really baffles me is that most of the winning quilts were done with pantographs! Or portions of groove boards! I'm not 100% positive, but I think mine were the only ones completely done free hand! I know the major shows are now sub categorizing machine quilting so that computerized stitching is recognized, but I would think the smaller ones would follow suit. Guess not this year, maybe next year. It's just my opinion, but I think that someone who's done a quilt totally unassisted by other means should get a little more recognition than someone who chose someone else s patten & followed it. To me, that person is really putting their talent & skills on display more than the other.  I know I haven't been longarming very long, & I definitely have a long way to go to become a renouned quilter, but I had the nerve to put what little I know on display for all to see. 

Well, I've got 2 quilts in the UFO pile that will fit the bill nicely for outstanding quilts. One is a Lone Star. That one is definitely going to show this next year. What I originally planned for the quilt & what it's going to finish as, are definitely two different things! Now I'm going to scrap some of the applique that was going to go on it & switch over to quilting instead.

To broaden my horizons with my quilting, I've just ordered Kimmy Brunner's books & DVD's. I've seen some of her videos & really like how she teaches. From what I've seen recently, she also agrees that with practice & ruler work you can have a quilt coming out looking like a computer did it. So, if she can do it, SO CAN I! I will watch that DVD over & over til I get it down pat, practice, practice, practice!  That's why I have a dry erase board! Wipes away those mistakes!

Hi there!
Welcome to my new blog!
This is a first for me, doing a blog, so please be patient! I'm learning!!
What do I want to accomplish with this blog? Well, I'd like to let other quilters know what to expect from a longarmer. Maybe give some tips on quilting, piecing, sewing pieces together, and maybe help someone new to longarming get started! There's a host of information out there, but very little for the beginner! And even less for the intermediate longarmer! My information is vast in the quilting arena & I hope to share it with those who'd like to follow along.
Stay tuned for the next installment! Who knows where we're going!