On a roll!

. . . ha, ha . . . well, not exactly, but I actually got a quilt done on my Innova today!  So happy -- Snoopy dance going on here.  I just think I burned myself out the end of the year, and I have really had a hard time talking myself into starting up again . . . I have done a couple of other quilts this year, but I have several that are stacking up here and enough is enough!  Several years ago I lost 100 pounds ... it took me 5 years to do it.  It was a great learning experience, and I did it using the Weight Watchers program.  One of the things that really stuck in my mind was something one of my leaders in a meeting said -- don't wait to be in the mood to lose weight, just do it!  I use that analogy all the time ... don't wait for the mood to strike you, just do it!  That's finally what I did with the quilt today . . .

 I used a 40 wt. cotton thread on top and So Fine in the bobbin.


 My client just wanted a simple stipple.  This was the mystery quilt class that I taught a few months back.  My quilt was really scrappy, and it was so fun to see what everyone did with their version.  I love this background fabric that she used . . . 

 Yes, at the end!

She decided to add the outside patchwork border to make it bigger.  I really like her color choices.

 The two solid borders she put on really balance the quilt and give it a lot of interest, don't they?  It was a fun quilt to do and I really enjoyed quilting it for her.

I buy my batting in rolls; I pretty much exclusively use Hobbs 80/20 ... I like the weight of it and it quilts up really nicely.  I don't have that much volume of quilting that I can afford to carry and provide more than one kind of batting for clients.  I don't want to be that busy!  I only charge my clients for the size piece that they need for their quilt.  The batting I use is 120" wide ... there are always chunks left over of batting, and I have a stack of pieces.  If you quilt, you know what I mean ... you have these odd shaped pieces lying around.  I finally decided it was going to get out of control if I didn't do something about it.

This is the leftover piece of batting from the mystery quilt.  In the corner I write the size of the batting, and then I staple it onto the corner of the batting.  Then I just fold it up and put it in my stack.  Whenever I need a particular size, I can just find the tag without unfolding the pieces and grab the size I need.  I eventually use up the odd size pieces in my own quilts.  I put a piece of batting in, and quilt until I get to almost the end of that piece.  Then I butt another piece up against the first, and quilt away.  I have never been able to tell that there is not one solid piece in the quilt.  There are various other ways to join your batting together . . . layering them one on top of another, and drawing a scalloped line, then cutting away one of the layers on the line and then they fit together.  I tried that and other methods, and I couldn't ever see any difference.  They all worked ... so the method I use is the easiest for me!