Dear Tech Support ... My Freemotion Spell Checker is Faulty

As I was working on the word "swimming", I thought to myself, "Hmmmm.  I don't remember making all those m's last time I stitched out this word."  Sure enough.  I tried skimping on letters.

So the seam ripper helped me unstitch enough to correct the typo.  The words went white on the paper just above the quilt.  I wrote them out on the paper to make sure I could space them well.  Then they acted as a guide for spacing as I wrote them in stitches.  No marking the quilt, but better results.

Here's the corrected word.

My kids learned a song in preschool that went :

All the fish are swimming in the water,
swimming in the water, swimming in the water.
All the fish are swimming in the water,
bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble, splash!

Fingers are crossed that I've spelled the rest correctly for this little Project Linus twister.  This photo below shows the quilt attached at the top to the frame, but not at the bottom.  I do this after quilting the center when I'm turning the borders to quilt them.  I'm not even going to try to quilt cursive writing upside down nor up or down the side borders!  I've found that the top and side clamps, plus the weight of the quilt pulling down over the belly bar provide enough stability to quilt the borders this way.  I don't know if anyone else does this or not, but it works for me.

Here's the center of the quilt.  This pattern was fast, required no marking and reminds me of seaweed waving in the current. 

To avoid stops and starts with each twister shape, I started in the center of the left twister.
Traveled up and back to center, down and back to center, left and back to center with the continuous curves.
Then I traveled right (continuous curve) to the edge of the twister and continued going right to the center of the next twister.  Once I quilted the whole row this way, I finished the last twister shape completely, then travelled left to the edge of the neighboring twister to complete the last continuous curve.... back again to my starting point.

The extra travel in the horizontal seam lines are doubled, but still not very noticeable.  Here's the back side of the quilt.

With a zoomed in section, I can see the horizontal traveling.  But only because I was looking for it over the purple background.

I think this is the first ever quilt that went on and off the frame in the same day.  The reason?  We had a snow day which relieved us from continuing with our shed building jobs.  It's been really nice to have a day where the agenda was erased and everyone could relax.

No accumulation, but it looks so pretty dancing in the air.  We usually get excited if we see snow for 15 or 20 minutes, so it's been amazing to watch it snow all day long!

Enjoy your day!
- SeeingStars

Another Twister ...

This pattern is so much fun to make!  With a charm pack, it's a perfect baby quilt kit.

I'm taking it with me when I anticipate time to wait or sit and listen.  It helps me find the time to hand sewing the binding.   Some of us love to hand sew this final touch while others prefer to get it done quickly with the machine.  I think the recipient is thrilled either way.

Here's a close up of the quilting.  I used the design in the White-On-White border as the inspiration for the quilting motif.  It was fairly quick to stitch and I didn't paint myself in a corner.

My nephew and his wife are expecting a baby girl soon.  So this one will get wrapped up and sent to Colorado to keep a sweet little girl warm and cozy.

I made a label by folding a square in half diagonally and machine stitching it down with the binding along 2 of the sides.  Once the binding is hand-stitched down, I'll write on the label with a pigma marker.  Not as fancy as a machine embroidered one, but I'm happy with it. 

Enjoy your day!
- SeeingStars

Another Twister in the works

Twister Top in progess

If I remember correctly, this is from Moda's Blush charm pack.  I used the leftover squares in the center to frame the twister blocks.  Next, I'll add another border of the off-white, then the brown polka-dots.  The pink on pink dots will be the border.  I did add a few extra non-Moda fabrics, including the outer brown and binding.

Backing fabric next to the top.

These pink flowers will make the backing fabric.  I think the pink dots binding will work well for the back side too.

While I waited for an hour near the high school during Driver's Ed class, I worked on the binding for Morgan's quilt and drank McDonald's coffee.  It was very difficult not to crack up at the country music they played in there.  Sorry Mom and Tamara, this is just not my kind of music!  For some reason, it just strikes me as funny.  There were 3 songs in a row which describes the mountains, trees, rivers and their home town.  It reminded me of the "formula" for the perfect country song, even though they didn't sing about Momma, trains, prison and dogs.

Enjoy your day!  Ours is cooler and the clouds with a light sprinkle make everything so green and vibrant!
- SeeingStars