READY for delivery when little Charlie comes for a visit … I am so excited

TOMMY AND KRISTIN with there one year old baby is coming for a visit next week. The baby’s name is Charlotte after her grandmother ( my best friend ) We call her CHARLIE also after my best friend. They live in Arizona and this will be the first time I see the baby up close. I am so excited…. I can hardly wait. This is the quilt I made for the baby… I had planned to mail it but then I heard they were coming to Michigan this summer so I decided to deliver it in person. I also dilly dallied postponing putting on the binding since that is the part I HATE MOST about quilting… love the piecing and the free motion quilting but when it comes to squaring the quilt up and putting on the binding I delay, delay, delay. As is I have three quilts in storage that just need squaring up and binding… One of hose quilts was done two years ago and I still do not have a binding on it.

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I have posted some pictures in the past but the pictures were not very good. I was able to hang the quilt off the back porch and get some better pictures. This picture is of the center panel. I am trying to highlight the free motion quilting I was able to do. I have been taking multiple free motion quilting classes from CRAFTSY and number of DVDs. I have been working on my free motion quilting skills for a year and I feel I have come a long way.

I used a different quilting pattern in each section of the quilt. Here I quilted around the sheep and then made swirls and feathers in the block frames. I have gone through the Craftsy classes from ANGELA WALTERS, CINDY NEEDHAM, LEAH DAY ANN PETERSON, and JACKIE GERRING. I also watched DVDs by Patsy Thompson, Karen Mc Tavish and Ricky Tims among others.

I think I got carried away with the free motion quilting as it is rather dense, once the quilt was washed it did soften up. In the future I am going to try less dense quilting styles.

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I do not like ….. I do not like pieced quilt backs. I buy the 108 inch quilting fabric backs then cut them to size. I use the left overs to make my practice batts for free motion quilting. I did not have any quilt labels available when I made this quilt so I thread painted the information on the back of the quilt. I used a sheet of RICKY TIMS STABLE STUFF as my stabilizer. This was the first time I had done anything like this and I was not entirely happy with the results.. but live and learn. I have since had quilt labels made from a local embroiderer. I had the usual information embroidered on KONA and will be using that in the future.
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UPDATE: CHARLIE GOT HER QUILT …. Yes that is me behind the quilt… I am the shortest person in my family… even my own DD towers over me by 5-6 inches.