Constant Temptation

I love being a longarm quilter.

Every day I am working with beautiful fabrics and lovely designs.  And I get to be a part of hundreds of quilts every year.

But there is one challenging thing about being around that many quilts - the constant temptations!

I recently worked on a client quilt and fell hard for a fabric.  It is the circle fabric in the upper part of this HST.  I can't say why I love this fabric but I had to find some for myself.

Funny story - that same day, I received the Connecting Thread catalog in the mail and realized this quilt is made from one of their kits.  Boy did that save me a bunch of search time!

It is the Wayfarer Quilt if you are curious.

I had some fun quilting this one - rather than quilt to the block, I used the piecing of the block to use as markings and created a kind of propeller design.

 In the framed square, I spiraled in a square.

 Here is how it looks from the back!

Pretty fun huh?!

And the fabric that started this whole story is happily waiting in my cart for me to put together an order.  Connecting Threads still has a lot of good fabrics in their clearance section, plus, all of their reds are on sale until Valentine's day!

Oh - Decisions!

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Thread!

One year ago, I thought I would start saving all my emptied thread spools to see how many I go through annually.  I thought I would share what I found out.

I use two types of thread - Signature (3000 yds) and Superior King Tut (2500 yds).  They run exactly the same through my longarm (so not a lot of adjusting for tension) and my Bernina DM loves it too.  I have been using the threads for about a decade and stock about 80 different thread colors in two large spool racks I had custom made.

In one year, I emptied out 63 spools.  These were not all full when I started this experiment and I have partial spools in my rack that might be close to empty.  I was curious which colors were most popular so I sorted them.  Below are the results:

Red     3 spools

Pink     1 spool

Orange     1 spool

Yellow     1 spool

Green     7 spools

Blue     8 spools

Purple     4 spools

Gray     10 spools

White/Cream     10 spools

Black    1 spool

Brown/Tans     13 spools

Multi - Variegated     4 spools

It was surprising that I go through that many spools of brown but I do like to use taupe and spice brown a lot.

I am not sure I will continue this experiment.  I knew I spent a lot of money on thread but seeing these spools in a box reminded me all year long how much I actually go through.

Sometimes ignorance is bliss!  😉

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Linking Up:

Sew Fresh Quilts (Bee Social)

My Quilt Infatuation (Needle & Thread)

Oh Scrap! : Courthouse Steps

I am one of the first to say, Why use one fabric when I can use ten! 

I love seeing lots of variety in my quilts.

 But I seem to have slid down a very slippery slope!  When I pulled some thread to start quilting my courthouse steps quilt, I decided 8 thread colors were better than using just one.

I also decided on a quilting design that requires a LOT of starts and stops.  About halfway through the first  pass across the quilt I was already second-guessing myself!  :)

But I am committed now so I will have to see this through!

Even though it is a slow process, I am loving the beautiful colors in this quilt.  I made this quilt using the Boundless solids and couldn't be happier with their quality!

 If you want to read more about my review of this fabric, you can check out this post.  If you are ready to try some for yourself, there is a Flash Sale going on this weekend and you can pick some up at a great price.  The quilt above was made from the Modern Brights bundle.

They also have lots of thread on sale if you want to go "scrappy" with your quilting too!
Feel free to join me in my madness!

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Time to share what you are making with your scraps.  Here are the details for linking up:

• This linky party is for any scrappy project - It can be in-process or a finished piece.
• You can link up your blog post (not your homepage please) or Instagram photo from the past week that features your use of scraps.
• If you are linking to a blog post, I ask that you link back to my blog somewhere in your post. So if you are writing about scraps, just get into the habit of including a link as there will be a linky party available every week!
• If you are using Instagram, please use the hashtag #ohscrap.
• This is a party so remember to socialize and comment on the posts of others.
• Following my blog is not necessary but it sure would be great if you do!

<a href="http://quiltingismorefunthanhousework.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg54Z8EyMCoCg0j1sBoz_APBotiRQveh32vQoL2dCSO4nQFAi8du60IuUCQp3Hb18vGD8IrM0W6_vmuufImGcr4Pf2Ve2dNIWd5LbQJfyDTRjtcekT6coT7c2nSCOG_9dvjiKGVAnuTN70/s1600/Oh+Scrap+Button.jpg" alt="Quilting is more fun than Housework" width="125" height="125" /></a>

So if you love scrappy projects, feel free to grab my button for your sidebar or posts and get ready to share all your wonderful projects from scraps.  And if you have a great idea for using scraps and would like to be featured, feel free to contact me!

An InLinkz Link-up

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Linking Up:

Love Laugh Quilt (Monday Making)
Patchwork Times (Design Wall Monday)
Cooking Up Quilts (Main Crush Mondays)
Em's ScrapBag (Moving it Forward)

Freemotion by the River (Linky Tuesday)

Young Texan Mama (Sew Cute Tuesday)

QuiltStory (Fabric Tuesday)

First and Last

Why first and last?  Well, this quilt was the last client quilt on my frame for 2014 and the first one for 2015.  This beauty was on my quilt frame for quite some time - not only is it a giant king size but I also quilted it quite densely!  I thought I would share...

Because the quilt is almost bigger than any room in my house, this is the best picture I could get of the whole quilt.  It is a Judy Niemeyer paper-pieced pattern and done in various gray, white and black batiks.

This quilt had a lot of negative space to fill in so I went with a stacked swirl design.  I tried to take photos from the front of the quilt as I quilted it but the quilting was hard to photograph...

But the back was a different story!

This one had everything - swirls, pebbles, linework and figure eights.  The backing was a dark gray and I used multiple colors of thread in white, grays and black.

I even created a fun pattern by planning some larger pebbles at the top of some spikes.  You can't really see it from the top but it is a hidden secret seen only on the back.

 It is so easy to miss areas when you quilt big quilts like this.  Before I unpin from my machine, I always spend a lot of time going over all the designs.  Thankfully on this one it was good to go!

The customer has already picked up her quilt and was over the moon!  Over the last 6 years I think I have done about 8 of these types of quilts for her.  I shared one I did for her in 2013.

Crazy, Huh!?!

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Linking up:

 Sew Fresh Quilts

 My Quilt Infatuation

Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Crazy Mom Quilts