The quilt is finished!

I took some time to put the binding on the quilt today:

Another Finished Quilt!

It is a huge relief to have this one finished.  In a lot of ways, this quilt is one of the reasons that I have a fabric addiction.  I saw this pattern in a magazine in 1998 or 1999.  It was a scrappy quilt--each square had a lot of different fabrics in it.  For some reason, I fell in love with it and decided to make one for me.  I really hadn't made a pieced top before.  The first square was pretty pathetic.  I had used a .5 inch sewing allowance instead of .25 inch, and I hadn't been careful enough with my cutting. 

The next square was better.  Pretty soon, I had enough to make the quilt top.  And, I got them all sewn together.  But, there it sat.  For years. 

Now, it is finished, washed, and ready to put on the bed tonight.

It is more than time!

Working out the machine quilting woes

I am still not sure what the problem really was with the machine quilting problems I kept running into.  I have my suspicions, though.  I tried re-threading the bobbin and re-threading the top thread numerous times with little to no success.  At one point, I thought I had solved the problem and sewed merrily along for about 15 minutes.  I was really pleased, until I turned it over.  The tension was way off, and I had to rip out 15 minutes worth of sewing.

Machine Quilting Was Not Smooth

Let's just say I wasn't overly happy about having to rip out that much sewing.

When I finished, though, I realized that I needed to put the second spool of thread on the machine because there was very little left to the first spool.

I now think that the problem was the spool of thread.  Once I put the second spool of thread on, progress was quick.  I have now finished the machine quilting, and just need to stop and pick up a couple of packs of binding:

Finished with the Machine Quilting

As an added bonus, tonight I managed to completely finish the first two lap quilts for the veterans' project:

Two Finished Lap Quilts

Fortunately, all that was left was to hand sew the hearts to the back of the quilts and complete the corner seams for the corners containing the hearts.  I have three more lap quilts ready to finish...

So, the question becomes:

1) Finish the full size quilt
2) Finish the three lap quilts
3) Work on products for the upcoming craft show season

Decisions, decisions...