Quiltingboard Forums - I won 2 Red Ribbons at our local fair

The 1st quilt I made for my great nephew - I used pre-printed squares as a focal point, then just used several borders to surround them. Good way to use up scraps. I embroidered 4 different trains for the corners and used a simple wavering line to layer the quilt on my long-arm. The 2nd quilt I made as a wedding gift for my cousin. This was 9 months in the making. It is a Thimleberries pattern called Leaf Swirl. For the top quilting, I used a paper templet for the leaf pattern and used a laser on my machine to follow the pattern. The small swirls and the meandering I did all free hand. I used a fancy buttonhole stitch to stitch down the binding. I think this is my best long arm quilting to date. I am very proud of this quilt. It was a big step for me as I have only been doing small or baby quilts on my long arm and mostly just using the meandering stitch. I stood at the machine for almost 15 min just moving and practicing following the leaf design moving the machine without the power on to steady my hand. The first two rows are a little shakey, but by the time I got through to about 1/3 of the quilt my hand was more steady and by the time I finished, those last few rows you would have thought I used a Q-bot. I did the same thing to practice for the small swirls in the small border. You really can't see the meandering since the thread was spot on perfect with the color of the fabric in the top and bottom big border row. The other challenge I had was that I had to turn the quilt because it was so big I couldn't roll it any more on my machine. The last few rows were very challenging as I had to now follow the pattern in the opposite direction. Both these quilts won a 2nd place ribbon in our local fair in Marshfield MA. They are still at the show - today is the last day. I will pick them up on Tuesday and deliver them to their indended recipients. I can't wait to give them the quilts and the ribbons.