Fall? Already?

Every week I have these great plans of sitting down and writing up a dozen blog posts, editing a whole bunch of pictures, and sharing them with everyone. Best laid plans… Every week, instead, I get distracted by the siren call of fabric. And the more siren, less call of dishes, laundry, and my favorite part – playing with the puppy.

So what’s new in Smilesland? Well, I have a longarm now! A friend was selling hers to upgrade, so I jumped in to save her from Craigslist hell, because that’s what good friends do. Wink wink.

It’s an HQ Sixteen, and I’m still getting the hang of it, but I’ve managed to successfully quilt two baby quilts, finish a fix of my husbands favorite quilt from long ago, a throw quilt, and a Christmas tree skirt I started two years ago. More productivity in the last two months than all of last year really.

 

 

There is definitely a learning curve to the longarm, and it will take me awhile to get back to the level of detail I was accomplishing with the Juki, but for me, it’s absolutely worth it.  I’ve had a stack of quilt tops for awhile that needed quilting. Not complicated over the moon outstanding quilting. Just, hold the layers together quilting. Which has always been my least favorite type, especially on the Juki. It took so long, it got boring. Now with the long arm, it’s done in a day. Maybe two if I stop to play frisbee with Hardie, and watch a movie with hubby.

Also, as a result of recent discussions with friends, I’ve decided my pictures here don’t need to be perfect. It’s a quilting blog, not a photography blog afterall.  We all know that “finished is better than perfect”. I’m amending that — Finished, and shared, is better than perfect. Right now, we all need more pretty things, happy things, in our lives, and shared amongst our little community of quilters. And that’s as close to discussing politics as I’ll get.

Here’s to more puppy pictures, more cats on quilts, more quilts, more smiles.