My First Quilt off the long arm...whew!
This has been a busy spring for me. Yard work always takes over my live in the springtime! Something wonderful came into my life last month! We finally bought a long arm!!! Oh my, I am so intimidated by it, but I've been practicing on my 'uglies' (fabric I bought so long ago and now I wonder why did I buy that???) So I decided I needed to take the bull (long arm) by the horns and make a quilt that I could use. DH and I live in a house that is too big for 2 people but we love it here and it's great for company.(My 3 DS, my DD and my Mom were here for a quilting fest for over a week! What a blast we had! Anyway when it's just the 2 of us, we turn off central air and use room air conditioners in the rooms we normally use. I wanted to hang a quilt in the entryway to block cool air from going into the formal living room and dining room. It took less than 2 weeks to complete it. You can probably tell that I 'ad libbed' it together. After it was pieced, I decided I didn't like the stark white with the black and red, so I mixed up some watery brownish craft paint and painted it. That improved it a lot!
Quilting is mostly just stipple and circles. I'm finding it difficult to make rounded shapes and things tend to get squared off and my circles have flat tops! I did see some improvement by the time I finished it, so all in all I am happy with the results. This one will probably become a 'picnic quilt' someday when I have time and proficiency on 'Lizzie' to make another one!