What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 Oh my gosh, you guys -- this is a rare surprise.  There are still 7 whole days left in the month of August, and I just realized that I have finished all of the quilting goals I'd set for this month.  Finished them EARLY.  I know, right?!  Who IS this imposter, and what has she done with the REAL Rebecca Grace?!

And it's not like I was wimpy with those goals, either.  Let's recap:

August Quilting Goals:

 Happy Tuesday, friends!  Welcome to another Long Arm Learning linky party!  I actually have a finished (long arm quilted) quilt to share with you today, my FIRST finished quilt of 2020 -- and yes, I do know how pathetic that is to be finishing my first quilt of the year in mid-August.  My Sermon Scribbles quilt is FINISHED, as in quilted, labeled, bound, washed, and photographed!  

I started piecing this in November of last year, and loaded it on my frame for quilting in April, just as this crazy pandemic lockdown was settling in.  From beginning to end, this silly quilt ...

OMG indeed, you guys!  I think this might be the very first time that I've been able to link up at the END of the month for the One Monthly Goal linky party, because this July is the first time I've actually completed the goals I set for myself by the end of the month.  I had set two goals for July, one of them a quilting goal and the other a blogging goal.

Background quilting is coming along on Spirit Song!  I'm now about 25% of the way finished, and I'm learning a lot along the way.  For instance, I quilted the wrong fill pattern in several patches while I was talking to a friend on the phone, but I'm leaving it because I doubt I could rip out such dense stitches without ripping the quilt fabric, and probably no one but me will notice in the finished quilt.  I am enjoying seeing how the quilting designs transform the flat, smooth surface of the quilt top with an "embossed" texture ...

I finished the background quilting in the first row of 4" blocks and moved down to the second and third rows yesterday.  This is VERY slow going, and I'm so glad I bought that adjustable height saddle stool on Amazon so I can sit at my long arm frame while I work on the tedious background fill quilting.  I've been using the stool when I need to unpick stitches with a seam ripper, too -- but hopefully there won't be any more of that with this quilt!  Hope I didn't just jinx myself!!

I am finished with the borders of my Spirit Song quilt!!!  I am finished with the blue thread!  I am so EXCITED!!  I rolled the quilt back up to the top last night -- for the last time.  Today I'll do some experiments off to the side of my quilt to decide whether I'm rethreading with So Fine or with the lighter weight Bottom Line thread in the needle as well as in the bobbin, and then I get to start quilting background fills in all of those white/neutral HSTs.

With the skinny inner blue border, where I ...

Good morning, my lovelies!  Before I share my custom quilting progress on my Spirit Song project, I'd love it if you'd take a second to give me feedback on an idea I've been kicking around for a new linky party.

I am finally having fun with free motion quilting on my long arm machine!  Yay!  The chalk pounce stenciling is imperfect, as it smudges and disappears while I'm quilting, but all I really need is a vague guide anyway for spacing and the angle of the curls.  If I mark just one motif with chalk at a time and then quilt it right away, it serves its purpose -- and I have zero fear that the chalk won't come out of my quilt, since it's all bouncing right off the quilt without settling into the fibers in the ...

If you've been following along with me recently, you know that I've been experimenting with the use of homemade stencils and chalk powder to transfer quilting designs onto my Spirit Song quilt.  My DIY stencils are made of 24 pound vellum paper that I've stitched through with an unthreaded domestic sewing machine to perforate the design lines, and since I've already completed all of the SID (stitch in the ditch) quilting on this quilt, it's already loaded onto my long arm frame.  In case you're wondering, there is absolutely no way you could use ...

And the beat goes on...  Here's what I accomplished in my studio after dinner last night:

Quilting Progress as of Last Night

So today is May 1st, and I've not put a single stitch of quilting into my Spirit Song quilt since the rip-stitching I wrote about a few days ago.  Finishing the quilting was supposed to be my One Monthly Goal in the studio for April, so clearly that didn't happen -- but I'm not just going to throw a bunch of stitches into a quilt to meet an imaginary deadline.  

Sad Spirit Song: No Further Quilting Progress to Report

First, the good news: All of the SID (Stitch in the Ditch) quilting with invisible monofilament thread has been completed on my Spirit Song quilt.  That was my main objective in last week's Tuesday To-Do List post.

It feels good to get to the end of the quilt!

Back to the Beginning for the Next Phase of Quilting

Good morning and happy Tuesday!  My quilting goal for the past week was to complete all of the SID (Stitch in the Ditch) quilting along the seam lines of my Spirit Song quilt.  I'm about halfway there as of when I switched off the machine last night.

Invisible Monofilament SID Halfway Completed

10 ...

Look what I finished yesterday!  My Spirit Song flimsy is finished!  (For those non-quilters or new quilters reading this, a "flimsy" is another name for a quilt top -- the pieced or appliqued top layer of a quilt, prior to being sandwiched with fluffy batting and a backing fabric that are all held together by quilting stitches that go through all three layers of the quilt).

My Spirit Song Quilt Top, 59 x 75, Ready for Quilting

My "quilting time" yesterday was spent cleaning, oiling and warming up my long arm machine so I could do 10 minutes or so of practice scribble quilting, oiling my maple butcher block cutting table with Boos Oil (haven't done that in a LONG time, since the table has been completely covered with piles of fabric!), and winding an assortment of bobbins for my long arm machine.  

Practice Scribble "Warmups" and Tension Testing

First of all, I want to thank those of you who reached out to me with words of encouragement, commiseration, empathy, and scripture after my last dispirited post.  As burdensome as this forced isolation is, it would be so much worse without technology and the Internet as a lifeline of connection.  I love all of you so much!

Spirit Song Quilt Top on Wall, Backing Fabric on Ironing Board

Was yesterday Tuesday again?  I'm not entirely sure -- the days are just melting into one another, now that my schedule is wiped clean and there's nothing to distinguish a Monday from a Sunday from a Saturday anymore.  Supposing that it IS/WAS Tuesday, it's time to revisit the goals I set for myself last week and to consider what I hope to accomplish in the coming week.

Last Week's To-Do List for March 17-24

1. Add borders to Spirit Song to complete quilt top.
2. Piece Spirit Song backing
3. Make Spirit Song binding and set aside
4. Paper piece ...

Ta-DONE!  I have not been this proud of finishing a single block in a long time, but this one was a bruiser.  It's a vintage block pattern called Cathedral Window, designed by Nancy Cabot and originally published in the Chicago Tribune in 1933.  I foundation paper pieced as much of it as I could, and then there were SIXTEEN Y-seams of traditional piecing to assemble those FPP'd units into the finished block you see below.  The points are sharp, the block is flat, and it measures EXACTLY 20 1/2" square.  That makes me quite a happy camper ...

You guys, I am so excited about a NEW linky party just for ruler work quilting!  Karin is hosting it on her blog The Quilt Yarn, every other Tuesday -- and the link up is active for a full week starting TODAY!  The linky party is open to anyone who is quilting with rulers, on any make/model machine whether it's a domestic machine, a sit-down longarm or a longarm on a frame.  I'm ridiculously excited about this because there is nothing better than a community of quilters who are all exploring the same techniques, working on the same ...