The Moda Love Star sewalong started in February last year (see the original post here and then my quilt top here) and over the Xmas holiday break, I managed to get it quilted YAY!
I wasn’t concentrating particularly well in the lead up to Christmas (we were hosting for the first time in 10 years!) so when I cut my batting I only have myself about an inch either side EEK! And when I made my backing some months ago, I also didn’t give myself very much extra space. For a longarm quilter this is a bit of pain in the xxxx.
So instead of being able to do a digital pattern (the sewhead would have hit the side clamps all the time which is awful), I decided I would try and do some free motion myself.
The first time I have done this since I broke my left wrist twice in late 2022. I was nervous.
I put the quilt up on Lily the Longarm and just got started. I was rusty. Very rusty. I did a 20 minute stint. Then I tried a 45 minute stint and my wrist didn’t complain (too much). I managed to finish the quilt top over two days doing small times on the machine each go! WOOHOO!
Soooo excited! I mean, I look at this quilting and see that I had absolutely no plan when I started. I tried my loopy hearts motif which has always been my go-to FMQ design and as I was feeling OK, I tried some swirls, then some feathers, some figure 8s, then some point to point freehand, some stitch in the ditch freehand (!!) and some peacock feathers.
None of them are as good as I used to do, but as the quilt started to get filled up with quilting, I got a little bit more back into my groove and I was enjoying it!
I got myself caught into corners, I wasn’t consistent, things were totally wonky, but it filled me with joy… and guess what, the quilt was quilted and could be finished off and head off to it’s new home soon.
Now I’m wondering which of my next WIPs I can do some more free motion quilting on, maybe this time with a bit of a plan!!
A couple of evenings doing some slow hand binding and the quilt is all done! The weather this summer hasn’t been very sunny or mild (we seem to be living in the tropics here in Victoria these days?!) so the quilt photo shoot was quick and my favourite quilt holder had to struggle with a lot of breezes!
Still, we managed to get a few shots before it started raining and blowing a gale, that will have to do for now!
And I even managed to use up quite a bit of Little Miss Sunshine fabric from the stash for the scrappy backing!
I love it & the FMQ is absolutely fabulous. Not something I can do these days. Yes, the weather has been horrendous down here with hot, humid, muggy days, then lots of rain & cooler weather. We’ve had well over our average rainfall for January here in Gippsland. Take care & hugs. BTW, hope to come across soon.