The Kindness of Quilters

Thanks to the kindness of everyone for all the comments about my sewing machine, I am sorry I haven't had time to reply to each of you but your comments really did cheer me up. I spent most of Friday at a lovely friends house tuning these blocks into a quilted runner for my Mother In Laws birthday present. My friend Liz let me loose on her amazing Husqvarna, brought me several cups of tea, sweeties and made lunch to keep me going.  She even managed to dig out the right shade of thread from her stash when I ran out! She really is so wonderful! Thank you Liz.

My mother in law has travelled to Lancaster County in the USA before and fell in love with the Amish quilts but was unable to bring one home. I tried to re-create a sense of traditional American/Amish quilt style in my runner.

Arizona Star Block

Mariners Compass Block (thanks to Katy for helping me find the pattern!)

Bearpaw Block

After almost 6, yes 6, solid hours of sewing and quilting I had a runner that just required the binding sewing down. This took me an hour! It is a large runner, although I didn't measure it but it is about 54" x 18".

Jumping right in at the deep end I decided it needed fmq with feathers and stippling. I watched several youtube videos and I think that really helped me with the feathers as this is the first time I have tried them. I will admit to drawing them out first with my frixion pen, I don't think I would have been able to do them otherwise. I also used an easy curve ruler of my friends, very useful and going on my wish list.

I also added triangle pockets and a piece of dowelling in case my MIL wanted to hang it on the wall. I must admit to being secretly very very proud of my quilting, the stitch length is awful in places but I don't care. I was exhausted after the race to finish it on Friday, then Saturday was spent cooking and packing ready for her surprise 70th Birthday Picnic. What with all that, the travelling and hours worrying about the weather and whether anyone would come I was shattered by the time we got home on Sunday evening.

Of course that is the last item on my finish along list done, good job too because my machine is still out of order, the foot pedal appears to be the problem and it is at my lqs waiting for the repair man to see if it can be repaired or needs replacing. I hope it can be repaired as I know I cannot afford a new foot, I should find out on Thursday.

In the meantime I am going to stick with my epp from the retreat and hopefully get my tax return completed!