Gret & I went to O2b Quilting today to rent Lucy’s longarm machines for the day.  I quilted my Chevron Tortilla Strips (Terry Atkinson) and Gret quilted a Christmas version of Terry’s Fire Escape pattern.  It was a very Terry day!

Here are a bunch of pictures from today:

Loading the quilt onto the longarm

First pass

A glimpse of the back

All finished, complete with the binding sewn onto the front.

Closeup of the triangle quilting

The quilted back

Closeup of the back panel

Love the triangle quilting!

I was highly motivated to finish the binding when I got home today, but alas, I didn’t have any navy blue thread to use.  I think that would have been a first for me – quilt and binding in the same day!

I’m currently cutting fabric for my own Fire Escape quilt.  I’m using Joy by Kate Spain for Moda. I’m waiting for my contrasting fabric to arrive via Etsy – I didn’t love the fabric that came in my kit, so I’m subbing it out for the white Christmas bulbs fabric.  Once it arrives I’ll be able to bust out my blocks.

These two Terry Atkinson quilts are all I’ve worked on for a few months.  I took a bit of a quilting break.  I (in theory) am preparing for the Project Management Professional certification exam.  I took a prep course – 4 hours a night, 2 nights a week, 7 weeks.  It was painful.  I haven’t sat for the exam yet because I need to review the materials (aka ‘study’) before I spend $500 on a 4-hour/200 question exam.  I need to set a goal for taking the exam and buckle down and study, but I just can’t bring myself to do it!  I’d much rather quilt!  Quilting, however, isn’t as much of a resume builder as the PMP certification is.

Gret & I go back to Lucy’s in just over a week to do one more quilt each.  We each took two today but ran out of time.  My second quilt is a donation quilt – it’s a 55×55 quilt top that I made for my son while he was still in utero.  He’s 9.5 now.  Since he long ago outgrew a quilt that size, I’ve decided to donate it…likely to Project Linus.