OMG girl!!! It came out beautiful!!!

Your going to LOVE the walking foot! None of your fabrics will slip! it feeds both the top and bottom fabric at the same time so you get a perfect feed, it makes for such a nice flow and NO bunching or stretching! Great for slippery or stretchy materials or when your sewing two different kinds of material together... or FLEECE! Gosh all mighty! Fleece slips! I hate working with it sometimes!

As far as cutting... GET SOME Ginghers! Joanns and the like carry them. They are the best! and sharp as ever! I used to rave about my fiskors... till someone bonked me on the head and said... "you poor dear.. get some ginghers" lol (a gal who has 40 years of sewing behind her) I now own 4 different pairs! They make a spring back pair, a ultralight pair, the traditional pair, dressmaker, long, short, small, large, thread snips, you name it... Its really not a huge line... lol but they make one for the basic needs and they make the best! I love mine!

As far as feet go.. I have a Bernina, so I cry poor every time I have to break down and buy another foot! regular feet run anywhere from 20 to 40 depending on what it is... zipper, hem, 1/4 seam guide foot, the last one there being my personal favorite! that wone was 30 bucks, but well worth it! If you do alot of quilting and no rag, but serious peicing, that 1/4 inch seam gets real important... so having a cheater foot, as I call it, really helps! LOL;)


I am really impressed with the quilt you made!!! I know its hard to get that fill centered just right... It takes time, but its doable... don't give up on it, rag quilts without it are just rags, not quilts.... they really need the poof... If you want to avoid the Poly type strings that make it look like the "stuffing" is hanging out, use "Warn and Natural" Its a cotton batting. It will wear really nicely with flannel and it dosent have that stringy poly look if you catch it in the seam. I use it in all of my quilts, it has a low loft and a nice weight to it.

Thank you. I have definitely discovered the value of the 1/4 inch seam the past two days. I also understand now why I failed geometry the first time! :eek: I am making my first pieced quilt (not rag) and I learned the hard way about the need to make your triangles bigger. Duh! What was I thinking? :p I had to recut all of them. Luckily I bought enough fabric. Thanks for the tip about the stuffing. :thumbup: :)

Just for giggles tonight I used my scraps from the baby quilt and made a bib. I really like it. :) Here's a photo.

So cute!!! I love it! You are very creative!! Your friend is going to be so pleased.

Now show us your fabric for the new pieced quilt. I wanna see...

Speaking of scissors, I was at Wal-Mart tonight and saw the Microtip Fiskars. Duh!! I didn't even think to look there since our Wal-Mart usually has next to nothing like that. Oh, well, the ones on ebay were only a little bit more with shipping. They came the other day and I think they will work well for the ragging (keeping fingers crossed). They seemed pretty sharp when I tried snipping with the tips.

cute bib!

Okay Nancy, here are my pieces laid out for my first pieced quilt. I hope it works out. :)

It's more of a toddler or lap quilt, but I thought it would be best to start with a more manageable size for my first project.

The bib is super cute!!! I love it! Your friend is going to just crumble! I was licky enough to have recieved one homemade gift when my daughter was born and it was by far the most treasured thing I recieved!


(and OMGosh... Just FYI... I totally don't spell check or even reread my posts before I hit submit.. I reread mine cause you quited it... I spell like a 2nd grader! :eek: when I get going, I get all phonetic! LOL My brain gets going so fast and my three finger typing can barely keep up! LOL)

Thank you! :)

Judy, that is going to be gorgeous! I love the fabrics you chose. You sure don't start out simple, do you? You just jump right in with the harder stuff. Can't wait to see it finished.

I love it!!!! I think the fabrics are great together!!! Nice job!!! I can't wait to see it done!!!

LOL! I'm the same way. Don't worry about it. ;) I just had to laugh at "licky" though! :p

I had a LOL at the licky! I'm bad about missiing complete words in my threads, bad about missspelling too!

Thank you. I just realized that I have the red star diamond halves reversed, so it's a good thing I took a photo and looked at it. :eek:

I'll be honest... you would NEVER catch me working with anything in strips or directional fabrics!!! Lining those up are a ^%$#% and I can NEVER do it!

I am NOT trying to discourage you, but I think this will be a lesson quilt, I'm glad its small... The directional in the pinwheel is a good place, but ONLY if its cut absolutly perfect, but for the body of the quilt or for large areas that are peiced, directional fabrics are not uasually a good idea, unless it lends itself to the theam, like in a crazy or mixed up type quilt...

Dont try to line them up, you will never be able to do it! I'm pretty OCD so it would drive me nuts! But now that I've said this... you may see it and think... OMG! lol But you'll see what I mean...

Yea well, that's what happens when you run across a $1 a yard sale on patriotic fabric at Walmart! lol!

Thanks for the warning. ;) I'm still playing with it. I'm not sure I like the pin stripes in the main area, so that is probably going to change, which will make it easier. I will definitely let you know how it goes. :)

Are you kidding?? I love the pinstripes! I just could never line them up... I would love to see them done up nice!!! It would be the death of me! LOL I'm so OCD that It would forever haunt me! :rolleyes:

I LOVE the fabric!! And just in time for the 4th!!!

Make it already! I wanna see it!! I'll dig up pics of the rag I just finished for my dad... one inch seams to rag... its a biggie...


We should start a post your quilts here thread! ;)

I would love to see your quilts! Oh please!

ok... I could cry! I called my dad and told him that I needed to reshot his quilt... I don't have photos anywhere and I honestly think I was sre excited to give it to him that I didn't take photos! I've done this on a few projects! It pisses me off to no end when I do that! I never took pictures and now I know better!

Here are the first two quilts I ever made!!!

And an example of my free hand machine quilting. My daughter and I were bored so we decided to try applique, lol and I had Nooooo IDEA how.. so I thought... cut it out, fold the edges in and swe it on! LOL this is what we got! I did the arms and Kate ironed the body... its a bit wavy but thats what makes it so sweet, we will always look at that K and laugh! we had sew much fun making it! and discovering a new way to create together! I ended up playing with the freehand Quilting foot, with the feed dogs down, for the very first time! And found out that I have a knack for quilting! (if I do say so myself!) I really got into a groove and was swirling around like mad! I whipped that out in no time. I was rather impressed with my first attempt at quilting... I think its the most enjoyable part of the process!

I also have a picture of a table runner I did (in process, I never got a pic of it done though! Again, was in such a hurry to gift it! LOL) It was a gift for my Aunt for Christmas.. it was a Quilt as you go method. Very fun and Very FAST! But I didn't like all the fancy spray adheasive and crap that I had to use... I'm simple...

The other one is a runner for my entry table... Its TINY little checkers are small, small, small! And getting those to line up nicely was fun! LOL I had to alter that one ALOT! it was a pattern for a much shorter and narrower runner and it was square, so I sliced diced and made it biger and cut off the corners! lol Its not done in this pic, but you get the idea.. I was still working on the binding...

Wow! Those were your first ones? I'm impressed. :) I haven't tried the freehand quilting yet, and I'm nervous about it. You did great!

It's so great that you and your daughter were able to share those memories. :D

Very nice, Kathryn! You did a good job! Very pretty quilts.

Those table runners are pretty also. The squares are so small in that last one. It reminds me of a tiny pieced quilt and pillows I did (using fabric swatches from a wallpaper book) for my daughter's Barbie. I don't think I would have the patience for squares that small if it was any bigger than a Barbie blanket or if it was something that really mattered.

That freehand quilting looks awesome!!

Why is backstitching a no no on a rag quilt?

Make a 12x12 "quilt" and have at it! Quilt a cool pattern, quilt your name! Just put the feed dogs down and go for it! the trick is keeping your hands/fabric moving at a steady pace.... I have a BSR foot that is still in the box... Bernina stitch regulator... it regulates the stitches, duh, and keeps them even so they arent all bunched up them wide and spaced out cause I moved too quickly or not quick enough... lol

Its really fun to freehand! You can do flowers and get real creative! My mission was not to cross stitches! and in that picture, I didn't cross once! It was a blast! My daughter thinks sewing is sew cool... I am going to have her take lessons with me this summer at the local shop where I learned! Its major bonding! I love it!!!

Because the backstitching ends up being in the ends that are out in the edges that are supposed to be ragging, and if you have a bunch of backstitched seams hanging out it gets funky...

I backstitch EVERYTHING and I did back stitck on a smaller rag quilt and they ended up being thread tangles... balls kind of things... know what I mean????

That makes since and I have never thought of it! Thanks! I need to finsih mine someday.

Update
 

I have the top done!!! Yeah!!! My first quilt!!! Next step...pin the batting and backing and then....quilt! Wish me luck. :rolleyes:

that looks GREAT! :thumbup:

Thank you! :D

Yeah!!!!!! What do you think, having used the directional fabric??? Will you do it again?? I LOVE the way your pinwheels turned out!!! What a beautiful top! I can't wait to see how the quilting turns out!!! Are you going to freehand it on the machine??

I'm going to try to freehand it, but I have no idea what I'm doing. What color thread should I use by the way? Blue?

I just have to put on the walking foot and figure out how to lower the feed dogs. I also need to put in a fresh needle.

Do you start in the middle or one corner?