December Six

Today was a quilting day. After work, Seann and I gathered up some quilt tops, batting and backing and headed to Sharon's Attic to use their long arm quilting machine. I have quite a backlog of quilts so I am trying to get time on the machine at least once a month. It was a miracle I could get in before the holidays. It seems a lot of people need to get their Christmas gifts quilted in December!

First up was a small Christmas quilt from M'Liss Rae Hawley's book More Fat Quarter Quilts. It was quick and easy until we got to the end and realized I had somehow miscalculated the batting size. We were about four inches short! Oops. Luckily Sharon showed us how to cheat by adding in a scrap piece. Once quilted, you can't even tell. Phew!

All ready for binding--a perfect couch project on these colder nights!

Up close shots of the quilting design, which is to say there really was no design. I just did random swirls. I love the thread color. It blends nicely on the back and pops well on the red and green on the top.

Next up was the Halloween quilt I started just after we got married three years ago. It was supposed to be a quilt for Seann that first Halloween but it turned out to be a bit more challenging than I originally anticipated. Seann made the pattern for me based off a quilt we saw hanging in a quilt shop. It has been a labor of love (and sweat and tears) and it was good to finally see it quilted. Seann decided he wanted to quilt it himself so I got to go play and look at fun fabrics.

Seann also chose to do random designs. Here is a spider web to help set the tone. We chose black thread for the back and bright orange for the top. If you look closely you can see a little bit of the orange peeking through to the back. It actually makes kind of a nice effect for a Halloween quilt.