So, this is what I have been busy with lately.  Mary made this quilt for her brother-in-law who needs a kidney transplant but, through a long and drawn-out process already, cannot seem to find a suitable donor.  If any of you are willing to give up a kidney to help him, please contact me and I forward your information on to her.   Mary chose straight line quilting for her modern quilt.  I learned a ton from working on her quilt.  The first problem I encountered was puckers in her flannel backing.  The puckers ran along the seam lines of the quilt top.  Well, I can’t have puckers, so I ripped those stitches out and chatted with a fellow quilter about what to do about those puckers.  She said to raise the hopping foot on my longarm machine when working with flannel, thick batting, etc.  Duh!  If your hopping foot is smashing the layers as you try to travel along the quilt, it is only going to drag, warp, and pucker the fabric… AND your thread will constantly break, which happened to me.  When it was all done, I was so glad to be able to quilt with flannel.  I love the feel of it and think it makes a very comforting quilt, especially as a gift.  Some people refuse to quilt with it, I found out, but I think I am going to go buy some flannel for my own quilts now.  My whole idea of quilts and quilting is comfort; comfort for sleeping, comfort for your emotions and spirit, and warmth as you wrap your quilt around you in a hug.

The other issue I had was that I had ordered a cross-hatching ruler online and was waiting for it to arrive.  I had tried using the other various rulers I have, and they worked fine, but, let me tell you, they did not work nearly as well as this one.  I was surprised at how quickly the rest of the quilting went when I had this crosshatching ruler from Quilters Rule.

If you look closely, you will see the base of the ruler pushed against the roller bar on the left side of the picture.  The ruler attaches to the base for straight line quilting.  Now, it’s called a cross hatch ruler, but for modern quilts with straight lines, this is the perfect tool for the job and worth every penny.  Believe me, this simplified the job of stitching at an angle on a longarm so much!  If you don’t already have one for your quilting business, I highly recommend buying one!  Check them out at: http://www.quiltersrule.com/template/mqt-chr.html

The other quilt I’ve been working on was made by Barbara with jelly roll fabric.  She is giving it as a gift to her daughter-in-law for Christmas and wanted the family names and personal notes written on it.  Can you see the writing in this picture?

Even her backing fabric is cute and goes well with the chartreuse thread she chose.

So, now that I’ve got those done, it’s back to the Opportunity Quilt that I need to finish.  I am working at our guild’s quilt show later this week, so I’d better get busy.