WIP: Bento Box Binding

I had a super fun week. I tried my hand at longarm quilting and finished quilting the Bento Box quilt using a pantograph in about 4 hours.

I used a rental longarm through Sparrow Studioz and My Sewing Room here in Calgary. I used a APQS Lucey longarm and loved having the stitch regulator. 

 The rental program is set up to ensure a good experience for new longarmers. The thread is provided is Fil-Tec Glide and comes with prewound magnetic bobbins. Using the same thread for all renters means that tension doesn't need to be adjusted very often and there are few thread breaks because Glide thread is so strong. Less thread breaking makes longarming way more fun. I ran into a couple trouble spot s on my quilt and the supervisor in the studio was able to get me out them. 

Overall I am super happy with the result. There are things I would  do differently with my piecing to make my longarming easier... Such as making sure to press seams with flannel open as the big bulky seams were a little rough to go through. And my backing was pretty skippy for loading nicely on the frame. I knew that when I was sewing, but was out of both fabrics that I used on the back.

Since then I have trimmed the quilt and attached the binding to front. Now I just need sometime to attach the back by hand. 

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday and Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts for Let's Bee Social.

Thanks for stopping by to have a look. 

GeoMama

Get Fit Fridays: #2

This week had way less exercise and way more quilting and geophysics work. Oh well. 

GeoDad and I went to the gym together on Sunday, and the kids got to play in the Kids Club they have on site. Then it was pouring rain all week. 

It's not that I can't bike in the rain... So much as I have to cross a creek 3 times to get home if I bike to work. That creek had major flooding this time last year so I wasn't going to risk having to take a detour  12km into my ride home. I did get out biking today when the rain stopped.

Week stats.

Biked 13km

Gym once

Put on a lot of steps side to side to longarm quilt my first quilt. (I know it doesn't count but it sure was fun).

Have a great weekend

GeoMama

WIP: Bento Box and Project Seventy-Two

Back when I started the Bento Box quilt I didn't have alot on my plate, I was working part time and finding plenty of time to sew. I thought I would have no problem finding the time to quilt it myself... nothing fancy, probably just straight lines with my walking foot... then I got a call and asked to do some contract geophysics work in June. I had promised the quilt would be done before July and if I was going to be doing geophysics in the evenings it was going to cut into my quilting time big time. I can sew blocks together with kids around during the day, but I can't manage a double quilt with them under foot.

It was right about the time I got the call about the geophysics work that my local quilt store started a longarm rental program. I jumped and signed myself up for the certification class to be able to use it and have booked my day to go in a quilt the Bento Box. So that is my self imposed deadline. Next Thursday I get to try my hand at longarm quilting, which was one of my goals from my 100th post.

Over the last couple nights I have taken the 42 blocks from individual blocks to a full quilt top and worked on the appliqué block that is going to be the focal point of the back.

I want to share more photos, but the friends getting this quilt read my blog, and I want it to be a surprise. So only a few sneak peaks.

I also finished making 18 flannel prefold diapers to go with the covers I delivered on the May long weekend. It was great to have a serger on hand to finish seams quickly. Thanks Grandma!

Lastly, I have had lots of time in the yard watching the kids to hand stitch block 2 for Project Seventy-Two. I love the warm weather, and my itsy-bitsy garden certainly does not take much time to care for.

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for Work in Progress Wednesday. 

Thanks for having look around. 

GeoMama