March 6, 2012

Longarm Quilting Update

Saturday I have an appointment with a local longarm quilter - my first time, I am so nervous and excited! I realize that I will just be handing my quilt, batting, backing over to her and that will be about it, but I am still beyond excited and can't wait until Saturday gets here!!! :)

Sunday I tried to square up my batting and backing which was a huge pain in the behind on my tiny kitchen table - especially when I realized afterward that both were too small for the 4-6 inches she wanted all the way around (2-3 inches on each side) - BAH. I cut the batting and backing originally so that I could quilt it myself so I only left around 1-1.5 inches on each side, which is more than enough for doing it in my home machine, but not enough for attaching it to a long arm machine.

I was super bummed, ALMOST broke my fabric diet to buy new fabric for the back, found some other backing I could use, and was stewing over the whole thing to my hubby... when I noticed that my quilt almost fits our queen sized bed.

I recently won another honey bun of this fabric so I decided that I am going to add on another row and column and make it big enough for a bed cover. Hubby said he likes it and it isn't too crazy/bright for our bed for Spring/Summer - so that is the new plan for this lovely. I am going to be so excited to have this on our bed for half of the year so it was a blessing in disguise that the backing/batting were too small.

Obviously I have no time to get this done by Saturday tho, especially between this head cold, work, and homework, so I decided to take a different quilt down to the longarm quilter first.


I did add a border after this picture was taken, using this fabric - cut it down to about 4 inches all the way around so it would fit the batting that didn't fit my other quilt:



So now all I need to do is make a backing before Saturday, make sure I give myself 3 inches all the way around, and iron the heck out of that and the quilt top because it has been folded up for over a year!

Crisis averted, I didn't end up breaking my fabric diet, I have a lovely quilt to take down on Saturday and a good plan to make my stripey quilt bigger and better before I get her quilted next month - so all in all I am a happy kid :)

Hope everyone is having a good start to the week!

Head cold is getting a tiny bit better so I think I can still go to our mini-quilt club tonight which is exciting! Still need to make binding and machine sew it onto my mini quilt so I can hand sew it tonight... but I should have time after work without any freaking out ;-)


3 comments:

Lyanna said...

I would love to have something longarmed! I've heard that the Midnight Quilter in Middletown is great and reasonably priced.

If you guys are willing to meet somewhere in the Smyrna/Middletown area, I know I would love to get into a Modern Quilt Guild (and know of at least 1 person who would love to as well). I am the youngest person in the Helping Hands guild I think, and am a little nervous to show & tell and whatnot because everyone's quilts are either traditional or scrappy. I fell like I would stick out quite a bit more, you should see some of the looks I've gotten being big pregnant and going... it's kinda funny.

**nicke... said...

good job for sticking to the diet... i don't have the willpower. i would have fallen off the wagon!

Impera Magna said...

It was a bit unnerving to leave my first "baby" with the LAQ.... but so exciting to come back and have a real live QUILT!

Lovely quilt tops... and will make gorgeous quilts!