News Flash: Old dog learns new trick

So, after a year of sub-par machine quilting and oogling others' quilts via the blogosphere, I finally made myself have the attention span to learn how to free motion quilt today. I have tried many times before but my tension was all wrong and I was too annoyed from hours of seem-ripping to figure out how to fix it.

Today I took some good advice from my friend Taylor, who smartly suggested I make a practice quilt sandwich and try different tensions on there. Well. That worked. Thank you Captain Obvious. Here is the result!

First Up: The Evelyn Quilt

Okay, so this is not done. In fact, neither of the quilts I am going to show you are done, but I was really proud of myself and couldn't wait any longer. (: This quilt is not exactly a masterpiece of color, but it means a lot to me. A few months ago I blogged about my Great Aunt Evelyn dying. She had some awesome stuff that a few people wanted dibbs on. Can you believe I got her used hankies without a fight?!? So lucky. (: So I made a little mini quilt out of them.

Evelyn was 96 when she died, and I believe that her hankies were about the same age. To help with the construction I used an iron on interfacing for each square. Other than that, I just squared off some edges and sewed it all together.

I love that she had her first initial on a lot of her hankies. Here is one example.

So this was my first go at free motion quilting. I'm calling it a success. My second quilt of the day was much larger. Does anyone else have achy hands after doing this free motion thing for too long?

Quilt 2: Jayden's Birthday Quilt

This quilt was supposed to be a first birthday quilt. Like, first ever, day of your birth, you are a new human, quilt. Now it will be a happy first birthday quilt instead. Ooops. It's all because I didn't have the patients for learning this free motion SOB.

I really love the squiggles. And actually, I haven't seen very many ways, other than the squiggle, to do free motion quilting. Loop-d-loop is next on my list of "things to conquer." Unfortunately, my summer break will be over very soon, and machine quilting will go back to the place where I put activities that cannot be done simultaneous to homework.

One more project to show. Actually, just fabric. TGIFP (Thank G-d It's From Purl) fabric to be exact. I was delighted to open the box and see this:

Friends of ours are having a baby. At first, before they knew the gender, they were calling it BLA - short for Baby Levin-Albert (the hyphenated being their last name). Now we know it's a girl, so here is the fabric for GLA's quilt:

No free motion quilting for GLA. Going back to my favorite quilt of all time: Hand quilted floral quilt, found in Last Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts. Also found somewhere on this here blog.

Okay, no time for elaboration. Boyfriend and I are walking down the street to get some Indian food. Vegetarian Samosas and Papdi Chat.... mmmmm.