Joann's Veteran's Day Sale

*Warm & Natural Queen Size 100% cotton batting $12.99(half off)
*120 long pearl quilter's Pins
*Assorted Cheater Needles (I keep losing mine - I was down to 1)
*Assorted Betweens (my old ones kept breaking in half!! maybe because they were like 50 years old.. lol.. I had to stock up for my Outer Banks travel project
*Schmetz Universal machine needles, 80/12
*200 assorted Safety Pins

All of the notions were buy one get one free AND I was able to use a 40% off one-item coupon as well as a 10% off sale items coupon. I thought I was going to have to charge something.. because I only had $22 in bills and a bunch of change.. well, I had to dig in the change because the total came to $22.98.
Spent $23 and saved $23.

Oh.. and see those white boards underneath my new stuff??? My womderful father went with me to Lowe's to help me pick out wood for Sharon Schamber's method of basting. I have a bunch of tops I want to get quilted this week. The last quilt was not smooth enough for my taste, and I have to try something else. I explained the method to my dad and even let him watch the video's Sharon has on youtube and her website.. but between my dad and me.. we had maybe half a clue.
He did insist on one thing.. and that was that the wood needed to be a good quality so it wouldn't bend or distort. He also insisted that it be finished (sanded and stained/painted.)
I picked up the board today and he had them finished and they are beautiful!! I'm so lucky to have such a handy-dad.



Stay tuned (HA) - I am going to document the progress of basting with boards ala Sharon Schambers. Her video/s are great, but the biggest complaint I hear from quilters is that the quilt she is basting is so small you can't get a good idea of how this method will work with a larger quilt... and also that she uses the same color of dyed fabric to represent the top and back. I have the general idea though, and hopefully we can learn how to use the basting boards together. I Probably won't take any video, but I'll have lots of pictures (as usual,) we'll see.

Quilter's Cramp

I AM IN SO MUCH PAIN TODAY!!!!!!!!!!
Tuesday I finished one of the quilts in the grey study series. This one is blue-ish greys and it's about a Twin-sized (62"x74")quilt.


I FMQ'd the whole thing. This is the 1st time I've done a large, bed-sized quilt all in FMQ and needless to say I am in severe pain!
***********When they tell you to take lots of breaks, drink lots of water, stretch, keep your shoulders and jaw relaxed, Don't quilt longer than 10 minutes at a time and break longer than you quilt you NEED TO LISTEN!!!!!!!! ********
Take it from me! I am now suffering because of it. I read these suggestions and warnings in each and every quilting book and website I've ever read - I thought these warnings were for "old people" LOL.

Well anyway I think for my first try at free-motion quilting a large quilt it turned out quite nicely. Except for couple of knots on the back everything went relatively smoothly. I did a variety of meander/stipple quilting in all the grey areas. In the colored area I "tried" to quilt a straight line 1/4" inside the edges with the darning foot. I used high-loft batting so it has a lovely puffy look to it. I have to say that using a darning foot or free-motion style quilting is much nicer than what I used to do.... which is use a walking foot and I would have to squeeze the whole quilt around and around each block. THAT was annoying. My 'straight' lines aren't that straight but I'll do better next time.
Here's some other photos of my finished quilt:





Have any of you had this problem - severe pain a couple days after free-motion quilting a large quilt on a domestic sewing machine?
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated