I love to make quilt tops, and love how they look, but the part that I have the worst time doing is the quilting of the quilt. It costs so much to pay someone to do the quilting for me, and then I didn’t feel like it was my quilt.
I tried to do free-motion quilting on my Juki TL-18QVP, but that took a lot of time, and I was not very creative on the quilting, and my wrists would start hurting, so I would stop for a while.
Then I found out that an embroidery machine can do end-to-end quilting, and I purchased a magnetic hoop for my Janome 500e. The quilts look great, but if they were large, they get hard to keep in the machine. I had to keep a close eye on the machine while it stitched. This became my preferred method for finishing my quilts. Small quilts this is the favorite method.
I am sure I am not alone when I say my dream was to own a long-arm quilting machine. They can be costly. I have been saving to purchase one, and when I was at the Houston Quilt Festival, I went around to all the different long-arms and tested them. Some I didn’t even test, because it would be hard to justify spending $45,000 to $50,000 for a long-arm. I did find them others from $10,000 and up. I had it down to three options, Juki, Grace, and Handi Quilter.
So, on my last day at the Quilt Festival, I made my decision and purchased a new long-arm Juki J-350QVP long-arm quilting machine with a 10 foot frame. I can say this is the most I have ever spent on a sewing/quilting machine. It was scary, but this was worth all the saving to get it.
The Juki was installed at the beginning of December, and I was so excited to get started. Now, I can finish all those quilt tops. I did test on a couple, and finished my December Island Batik Ambassador Lone Star quilt. There are a lot of mistakes, and don’t look close.
I did realize that if you can afford to purchase higher quality thread, do it. I was almost out of my Aurifil thread, so I went to my local quilt store, and they didn’t have the color I needed, so they recommended another brand. It was a nightmare, and my husband finally drove me to another store about an hour away to get the Aurifil 2600 thread. A light gray that works great with almost all colors. I got extra to keep on hand.
Now that I have had a chance to play with my machine, it was time to get started on all those UFO (Un-Finished Objects). So I went looking to see what quilt tops were ready to be finished.
UFO Quilt 1
The first quilt I found, I had made the top as a part of a 9 block quilt, where they released the blocks once a week. I wanted a bigger quilt, so I made 3 extra blocks to make it 3 x 4. The group was in 2015, and while I tried to find the Facebook group, I could not find the name of the quilt challenge.
I finished the top quickly.
I had decided I wanted to create a special back, so I cut 2 1/2″ strips of the color fabric, for the back. I actually took to a long-arm to quilt, but the back was a couple strips shorter than she wanted, so I took home added them, but never got a chance to take back.
It had been hanging on hangers in my closet ever since 2015. When we moved in early 2022, I found it and wanted to get it finished at some point. So this was the first quilt I decided to work on. I finished the long-arm on New Years Eve 2022, but didn’t finish the binding until New Years Day 2023.
I decided to do swirls on the long-arm, and used Aurifil Thread 2600 (light gray), and it turned out so nice.
I am still learning on getting everything aligned on my long-arm correctly, so you can see the strips are a little off, but not bad for first time working with a stripped back.
I used white fabric to bind the quilt. I love how it turned out.
So the quilt was piece in 2015, long-arm in 2022, and bound in 2023. I think this is my oldest finished quilt top that has not been quilted.
Fun Idea…
While trimming the quilt, I noticed that there is a lot of the back fabric that was left over. So I was thinking of how to use that fabric without wasting it. I decided that I could cut the long pieces into 2 1/2″ strips, and removed the partial pieces of the ends. I then removed extra pieces, so it would go the four colors in order. I think removed the extra strips down the side of the side pieces, so I could cut 2 1/2″ strips of the 4 pieces. This let me sew a very long strip of stripped binding.
The only think I would do different next time is to open the seams on the binding, as it was very thick at those points, and getting around the corner was harder if those seams were at that point.
Here is some of the extra binding strips that I had made.
UFO Quilt 2
As you will see, I really loved this fabric of hummingbirds and flowers, so I purchased a lot. I have made 4 quilts out of the fabric, and have enough left for at least 2 more.
I found the quilt top that I made for my 2020 Quilting BOM for the second half of the year. I basically finished the quilt, just didn’t have a border done.
So I added a black border around to finish the look.
I then used some crinkle black 108″ wide black fabric. This way I didn’t have to sew any seams.
I used my long-arm to quilt, using a flower design.
There were some issues with the long-arm (ok, user errors), but I got it done.
I then used the binding I had created from the left-over back fabric on the other quilt. I was so excited to get it added.
It was a little windy out when I was taking the picture.
Here is the back, with Ms. Precious needing to smell the ground around it.
Here is a close-up of the trim on the front.
This was so fun to finish two quilts that have been sitting around for a few years. Now to figure out who to give them to.
Next step….
I I have two more quilted of the unknown number of quilt tops waiting. It feels so great to get them finished. My goal this year is to finish all of the quilt tops that I can, and to stay current with them. I did pretty good last year, and only had two that I started but didn’t finish.
One quilt to finish is a fun one that I did in November, with a sewing theme. I need to add a border and find the right design to long-arm it.
The other was a T-shirt memory quilt, I got all the t-shirts from the bicycle rides we did in 2019. I couldn’t make my mind on how I wanted to make the top, but took a class in Houston this year, and started it there. I finished top it in December. We will take with us on our rides, so probably need a dark gray or black background. I didn’t find a design I like, so Quilting Pantographs created a bicycle design for me to long-arm the quilt. That was so awesome!
More on those to follow…….
Let me know how many UFOs you have sitting around waiting to be quilted.
Until next time….. Lisa with Lisa’s Quilting Passion
#UFOchallenge2023, #aurifil, #juki, #Janome
Lisa's Quilting Passion 