Longarm Sampler

So I heard about using Crayola Washable Markers to mark up a quilt, from Turbo Quilter. I love her stitching and I say where she wrote that she uses thes markers to draw on the quilt and then washes it out.  I'm still very new at using my longarm and quilting in general, so I thought this method might be for me.  I went to Joann Fabric and got a bunch of muslin and some cheap batting. I drew all over the quilt with every different color marker in the box as well as the washable marker from the quilting notions section.  While I was drawing on the quilt I did make some mistakes, so I did as Turbo Quilter suggested and sprayed the offending spot with water. Unfortunately this did not work well on the Crayola markers but was suprisingly effective on the quilting marker.  I tried my best to follow the lines, granted I didn't always, but I was very pleased with the results. Even though the Crayola markers didn't come out with a spritz, every color came completely out with washing.  The quilting and drawing process took me 3 days total before I got the quilt into the washer.  I don't know if it would be harder to get the markers out after a longer period of time.  I just need to get a little better on my tracing capabilites before I put this on one that I'm going to give away! Here's the picture, I wasn't with it enough to take a picture with the quilt all marked up before the stitching, but here's before washing and after washing.

This is the front before going in the washer, you can see the part on the quilt where I tried to spritz out the red marker, all it did was bleed.

Here it is fresh out of the washer, absolutely no marks at all!! Lovely!

Holiday Block Swap

One of the groups I belong to on facebook is holding a holiday block swap for it's members, and I decided to participate.......we'll see how this goes.

I decided to use my pretty pretty EQ7 to make some unique blocks for the lucky ladies in my group and the results were varied. The blocks that I chose that were completely pieced turned out great, the blocks that I decided to paper piece......well it was challenging to say the least. I had to completely re-do one of the blocks because I messed it up so bad.  Apparently I have no concept as to how to cut the pieces before you use them.  Now I'm not a novice at paper piecing, I've been in the process of completing a pattern from Starr Fabrics for a while now.  So I thought I could handle it....apparently not. I wasted the most beautiful sparkly black fabric, but alas I went to fabric store got a different black and tried again. Needless to say I am now an expert at measuring the approximate cutting sizes for paper piecing! Tell me what you think of my blocks:

Christmas

Easter

Halloween, one of my favorites! Didn't want to send this one away.

Hanukkah

Independence Day

Mardi Gras

New Year's Eve, another favorite.

Canadian Remembrance Day

Thanksgiving

The only criteria to create the blocks were to use the colors that the requestor specified.  I think I did a pretty good job, but I won't find out until the middle of October! Yikes! Fingers crossed.....