Category: Qnique

Earth Song – A Finished Quilt

Amy Cook

Or, in other words, A Quilt I Didn’t Quit, or in still other words, a UFO No Mo’.

I just read through my first post on this little quilt. 

As you might have guessed, I did procure a long-arm between the writing of that post and this one – a Q’Nique 15Pro from The Grace Company. She and I have had our disagreements but I think maybe we’ve finally come to an understanding. She’ll do whatever the hell she wants and I’ll try my best to deal with it. (Maybe she’s actually a He.) Haha. Seriously though, I love that machine when she’s behaving herself. I did manage to finish this quilt with the help of Angela Walters. Isn’t she amazing!! I have her book, Free Motion Meandering, which is what I used to do this quilting. No offense to Angela. She explained everything perfectly well. I just need more practice. 

Anywho… 

Oh, check out my big-stitch binding. I’ve been doing almost all of my bindings this way lately, and I love it. It’s so much easier, it holds well, and it gives an extra little detail to the back of the quilt. I freely admit I stole the idea from Erica of Kitchen Table Quilting. She has a great tutorial if you’re interested.

The only other item of interest is the improv-pieced backing I did.

I hope you like Earth Song. Thanks for stopping by…

__Amy

Another UFO Bites the Dust – A Story about Long-Arm Machines

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Y’all, I did something… I bought a thing, and I’m not sure exactly what it is. I’ve seen it called a mid-arm machine but I’ve also been told it’s a tiny long-arm. At any rate, it’s Uber-fun to drive. (Yah, it’s called “driving.” I didn’t make that up.)

Meet Quita. (Because anything that costs this much $$ should have a name.) She’s a Q’nique 15 Pro from the Grace Company and she sits on my 5-foot Brother Dream Fabric Frame, also made by the Grace Company.

I bought the frame as a package deal with my Brother Innovis VQ2400 but I really liked sewing on that machine so I took it off the frame, which I’ve been using for fabric storage for a couple of years. Meanwhile, my finished tops are stacking up faster than I can quilt them using only my VQ2400.

Enter Quita. Already, I finished my orphan block quilt started in 2017 and just yesterday, I finished quilting another long-time UFO – my Stripey Hawaiian baby quilt. I’ve gotta come up with a better name for that quilt. Maybe while I’m binding it, I’ll think of something.

This quilt already has quite the story to tell. My cat ravaged it, I fixed that problem, then started quilting it on my Brother machine using some echo quilting. See below. But that wasn’t going well, so I folded it up and threw it in a corner until Quita came along. Now, voila, it’s done except for the binding. 

I know… it’s pretty terrible, but I have a few more small quilts to practice on, so hopefully I’ll get better soon. Until then, I’ll probably still send out my best and biggest quilts to my favorite long-armer, but one day… one day, I too, shall be a great long-armer. Maybe. I hope!