Moving slowly

I've set up the Juki and started using it to quilt this gift piece. Right now I'm slowly stitching in the ditch around all the rectangles and will eventually fill in the cream background.

The Juki is performing very well. The mechanism is both stiffer and more solid than the Kenmore: it takes more effort to turn the hand wheel, but the whole machine is rock steady while running with the motor. The extra space through the harp is wonderful. I can rotate this whole lap quilt through it with ease. It seems to take more work to move the fabric under the embroidery foot, though, even with the presser foot pressure at the lowest setting.

However, that may be a function of my increasingly weak and painful shoulder. I have a rotator cuff injury in my right shoulder that is giving me fits. We've decided to spend a little more time here in Chattanooga so I can do some physical therapy. I don't think quilting is to blame for the injury, which hurts primarily when I lift my arm above shoulder height. While sewing doesn't hurt, it is tiring, so I'm dialing back how much I do each day to give my shoulder as much time and space as it needs to heal. 

Sunday stash

This week, a wonderful surprise arrived in the mail: a huge, 11+ pound box of fabric from Sue of Suebee's World! Sue and I discovered each other's blogs right around the time I was traveling through Columbus, MS. It turns out that Sue is moving to nearby Starkville, and when she found out that I sew for Project Linus, she offered to send me some kid's fabrics from her stash to lighten her moving load. 

What a fantastic batch of fabrics she sent me! Clockwise from the lower right, there are stacks of birds, cats and dogs, butterflies, fish, bright blenders, transportation fabrics, and large pieces for backings or backgrounds. What's amazing to me is that those are exactly the themes I collect for kids' quilts. I don't buy princesses, clowns, teddy bears, ice cream, or any number of other subjects, and Sue somehow knew just what I wanted.

Thank you so much, Sue! I can't wait to start using these fun, vibrant prints for Project Linus. I think I hear a Fish Bowl quilt calling my name...

The other fun item that arrived in the mail here in Chattanooga is a new-to-me Juki TL2010Q sewing machine. Wahoo! I've just finished reading the manual and am starting to test all the features on this baby. The Juki is a solid aluminum beast, and weighs about twice as much as The Little Kenmore That Could. The box weighed 40 pounds. The dock hand who carried it down to the boat was sorry he volunteered for the task, I think.

The Juki has several features that the Kenmore lacks that I hope will really simplify some of my quilting: a much bigger harp space for wrangling the bulk of a quilt, a thread cutter, knee lifter for the presser foot, and needle down/up selection. The last one is particularly nice: it automatically stops sewing with the needle in the fabric while doing free motion quilting, so I can re-position my hands without the quilt shifting out of place. The Juki only does straight stitches and free motion, so I'll be keeping the Kenmore for zig zag and other special stitches like button holes. Not that the Kenmore has many choices, but I'll need to use it for machine applique.

In other news, I finished piecing Scrappy Twist, sewing the final three seams using the Juki. Smooooth! Next on my to-do list: baste several WIPs and test out the Juki's free motion quilting chops. 

Scrappy progress

I got quite a bit of piecing done on Scrappy Twist while we were still hooked up to power at the dock in Decatur. Here are six of the twelve blocks, hung up in front of our back door for the stained glass effect.

Three more are ready to be added. Backlit like this, it's harder to make out the individual fabrics, but I feel like I'm getting better at creating contrast. Most of the intersections where the squares overlap are distinct and not too "muddy."

The last three blocks are still sitting on the ironing board where I had to stop when my sewing room lacked sufficient air conditioning! We are underway each day on the Tennessee River now, and generally don't run the generator enough to cool that room down. The boat's main engine produces enough power to run the a/c in the pilot house, where we drive the boat all day. We'll be at a dock in Chattanooga later in the week, and I'll probably finish this top then.

The curtain rod holding the pieces in the top two photos used to be installed above our bed, just to display hanging quilts. However, the installation of the pilot house a/c required removing a nice wooden shelf. We wanted to keep the shelf, so Sean installed it above the bed where it now displays folded quilts. That meant the curtain rod needed to be moved, so into the salon/living room it went. Finding wall space on a boat big enough to display any part of a quilt is a real challenge! I'm a bit sad to have lost my large over-bed display area, but am happy with the tradeoff of having a good place to put up bits and pieces for taking photos.

The two bird pictures are just el cheapo canvas artwork from TJ Maxx, and cover some holes in the wall. Eventually I'll probably make a horizontal wall quilt for that space. It seems all my smaller quilts are vertical.

Linking up with Scraptastic Tuesday.

Back into a routine

We returned a couple days ago from a very long road trip from Alabama to Virginia and back to sell our motorhome. The gory details are up on our travel blog, but for the record, no quilting was done during that trip. I didn't even bring along some hand sewing, since my right shoulder has really been bothering me lately and I wanted to just let it rest and heal.

Today, though, I sat down in my little studio on the boat and got a few things done. I pieced two more blocks on the Scrappy Twist quilt. They are the top half in the photo above.

I also added asymmetric borders to the Dragonfly quilt. The basic pieced top was only 42" square and I wanted something better sized for an adult lap or couch quilt. Kat suggested making the disappearing four patch blocks "float" in offset borders and I really liked that idea. This photo shows it laid out on our queen sized bed in our very, very dark bedroom, but you get the sense of how big the borders are.

I've decided that I will use the quilting to extend the four patches out into the negative space, using matching cream thread. The effect should be subtle but interesting, I hope!

Baby quilt doing what it was meant to do

This photo makes me so, so happy! There is no greater reward for my work than to see the recipient literally wrapped in the love that went into a quilt. Little Brooklyn is pretty sweet, isn't she? She is the great niece of my stepmom, Kay. 

Kay and Dad were able to visit Brooklyn and her parents this week, and give the quilt to them. Thanks, Kay, for sending these lovely photos. And thanks to Brooklyn's mom and dad for giving me permission to share them. It's always a treat to make a gift for such a happy occasion.