Christmas Table Topper

In October I was fortunate enough to be able to go to Let's Quilt in St George Utah and take some Innova classes from Teryl Loy.  These classes had come with my Innova when I bought it, but I was unable to schedule them in for a year. 

Those classes were great, I learned a lot about my machine, and how to set tension, and met a whole lot of really nice people.

 This quilt was the day we learned about using the laser to follow and create patterns (the poinsettsas and the holly) and I used a stencil for the Christmas trees, and decided they needed to be ribboned.

I used a Superior metallic thread on the top, and Glide in the bobbin.

It turned out so nicely, I gave it to my aunt and uncle for Christmas.

The front

the back...

I had not expected that star image to appear, but what a nice coincidence.

Ladybugs

I guess it's safe to post pictures of Christmas-gift quilts now, LOL.

This quilt belongs to my friend Michelle, and she made it for a special young lady in her life. Michelle asked for red thread, and I am glad she did, because I would not have selected it on my own, but it sure looks great.

The ladybugs got a little stitching on their bodies to stitch them down, and then loopies all around them to resemble their flight paths.

The backing is this lovely textured Minkee.

And then Michelle went home and made a little dolly quilt to go along with....isn't it sweet?

Under the Covers

This center of this quilt is from the Under the Covers mystery quilt class I took at Quilt Canada when it was in Calgary...about 2 years ago?  The instructor was Kathleen Bissett and I really liked making her Magic Tiles pattern.

Kathleen made up kits that came with the class, and these blocks could be laid out in many different ways.   I added the blue and gold borders to make it large enough for a TV quilt for my son.  He said "Thanks for the quilt Mom, I really like it, but why did you put flowers on the back?".  Oh dear, I had just seen the dark brown color and not the flowers at all.  oops.

When I added those blue borders, I just added the widest borders I could (with the fabric available) to increase the size of this quilt.  I have since come to learn that this is what is sometimes known as a 'slab of border' in the longarm quilting world.

This was the last of the 7 quilts of my own I had saved to quilt when I was waiting for the Innova to arrive.  My plan had been to quilt those 7, and then to start taking customer quilts....plans change, but I am pleased to say this was done within the first 12 months of owning the Innova.  I had a new Swag Ruler from  Constantine Quilts to play with, so I quilted swags in the borders.  There was still a LOT of border left unquilted, and since my goal was to learn the swag ruler, I quilted more swags.  Happily, I liked the effect.

And my son and I both like the corners too...he thinks it's like Rocket Ships.

And that was the end of my pre-2012 to be quilted quilts. 

Bad Blogger

Yikes!  Has it really  been since November that I've blogged?  I guess I'm spending enough time enjoying everyone elses blogs that I haven't noticed my slacker tendencies :)


Well....I have some pictures stored up to show you....