Friends Across the Ocean!

Remember these? These are my block swap blocks....the deal was pick one black with white fabric, one white with black fabric, and two bright fabrics......

These 2 x 30 sets of blocks flew off to to my friend Shannon in Atlanta, Georgia, Shannon sorted all of the Friendship Star blocks and I received these blocks in return....of course you all know these are 'friendship stars'.....

My blocks are in the four corners pulling it all together, borders added and quilted with a 'star burst' pantograph which blends right on in and is hidden....Hmmmm.....to me the quilting can be the best part of a quilt and it can't even be seen....'Oh Well'

I had a few blocks left over that were perfect for pillow shams.....

I set myself a few tasks to finish up some UFO's before the end of the year and here it is all finished at last from my 'Friends across the ocean!'

Can you see your blocks?




Update:- this quilt now lives in Scotland capital city of Edinburgh with my youngest Son....

A few small finishes!

That's two Christmas wallhangings, two Christmas table mats, two pillow shams, and three cushions with quilted fronts and backs....and a partridge in a pear tree....lol....all of the cushions and the pillow shams are made up from either orphan blocks or pieces left over from quilts you have previously seen too, well except for one quilt which is still being bound.

OK, they are not all finished, I still have the binding to hand sew down on one cushion but it will get done tomorrow!

How big is your machine?

That's a question that many Longarm Quilter's get asked....I think what's meant is 'what is the biggest quilt you can quilt on your longarm?'
Well, the frame on which my longarm machine glides has 12 ft rails so that means that one side of the quilt could comfortably be up to 130 inches (maybe slightly bigger), but the other measurement can be longer as the quilt is wound on the rails as you advance.....I don't know who would want a quilt bigger than 130" x 130".....but it could be done!


But today's more relevant question is 'how many quilts can you quilt on your longarm....lol...?

Answer for today is 'Eleven!'

Well...that's five on the first row....(the tops of two pillow shams, the tops of two cushions and a cushion back at this end).

And that's another six on the second row.....(two Christmas wallhangings, two Christmas table mats, a cushion top and another white cushion back at the far end). Of course if my piece of backing fabric had been a little bit bigger, I could have also quilted another cushion back to finish off .....maybe next time!

I'm having a bit of a tidy up using up some orphan blocks that you may recognise and finishing up some small projects, some of which belong to my GKids.  These small quilts are all loaded on the same cream backing fabric although I am using some smaller offcuts of batting that have been lying around waiting for just the right project.

It takes a while to load all of those little quilts but it would have taken alot longer if they were all on seperate backings.