Night Shirts Quilt

I dreamed of a blue and gray bed quilt.

Squares in a square, and then it kind of developed into "split squares in a split square".

So much for the gray--the blues ran away with this quilt.

I dug into the 1/4 yard and 1/2 yard remnants.  My goal is to reduce my scraps/remnants by making one scrappy queen size quilt each month.  So far, 5 quilts finished.  But really, the count is 6 queen size quilts since the beginning of the year I'd forgotten about--one I built for an artist friend Sue with kaleidoscope blocks, yo-yos and hand stitched beaded prairie points called "Folk Art Quilt" pictured below.

Because I added yo-yos to this quilt (while quilting it) I had to move the take-up rail upwards to make room for the extra yo-yos adding to its thickness.  The rolled up quilt kept getting fatter and fatter as I quilted.  I needed extra space under the take-up rail.

Moving/messing with the take-up rail caused me lots of problems on subsequent quilts.  I moved the too tall take-up rail down for the next quilt.  But this adjustment made the quilt frame out of square.  I learned a good lesson, but it I was slow to process what was going on.  Problems coming my way.

I couldn't get my head around why I was tugging and snugging at my next quilts during the long arm process.  I checked quilt frame level and it was perfect.  Here's the deal though.  Listen closely, and pretend your shoulders are the take-up rail . . .

Now stand up straight as you can, hands at your side.  Nice and straight shoulders you think?  How about curling your left shoulder inward about 1/4".  Go ahead, curl your shoulder slightly forward.  Now, your shoulder is not square.  I was driving my quilt slightly sideways down the road.  All the tugging and snugging I did, trying to keep things in line while I quilted was puzzling to me, but I wasn't understanding why.

This is how you can screw up your machine timing, and the position of the stitch finger.  Ask me how I know, and better yet ask me how much it cost to repair it.  Ugh.

***
Jon squared my quilt frame for me on Sunday.  He cut me a wood tool too, to check distance from the left, right, middle of the belly bar to the take-up rail.  He scribed Sharpie lines at the left and right uprights on the belly bar and take-up rails . . . to give me an opportunity to check and double check before I start a project.  It is another couple things to add to my start up checklist.  But that's ok.  Lesson Learned.  Did I tell you my serger died last Monday?  Oh my, what a week!

Ok--now let's get on to the photos of Night Shirt Quilts.  It turned out fine, I got my long arm machine repaired.  Wonderful work performed by Ken from Green Bay, the sewing machine whisperer.  I re-loaded the quilt and finished hand stitching binding Saturday night.  Done.

Feather Bouquet, free style edge to edge - free motion quilting

taking the beast off the frame

backing features art panel of left over blocks from the quilt top

Time to Rest!

I love the double border.  Used up sub-assemblies from the smaller split squares, sewed them end to end to create border.  Bye, bye, scraps. 

I bid a fond farewell to a particular fabric.  Navy with small turquoise paisley.  You are gone now, used up in several scrappy quilts.  I loved you, you little bugger.  I will miss you.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.