My First Finish of 2018

My first finish was a UFO! I'm making quilts for the beds in our house, long overdue, and this one is going on a bed in the grandkid guest room. It's all made from men's shirts, as is the one I'll be quilting next week to go on the other bed in that room. I finished this quilt Wednesday, and I've already had a grandkid sleep under it!

I'm learning things about my Tin Lizzie as I go along. It definitely does better with polyester thread, but I've heard a lot of longarms do, so it's not a huge surprise. I'm sure with a bunch of adjustments I could make cotton thread work, but since I have a bunch of cones of Madeira Polyneon I scored at Goodwill, I don't mind using polyester thread.

This photo was taken while I was quilting the above quilt. In this photo, I'm only using the lighting that came with the Tin Lizzie (and normal overhead lighting). Notice how dark it looks under the arm of the machine. It was hard to see where I was going, and where I had already quilted.

Here's a photo with the new LED light strip I purchased switched on! What a difference!
I bought this LED strip. It was simple to put on, and I am seriously thinking about buying more for some of my vintage machines.

I have two baby girl quilts to make, for people in different states, and I've decided to cheat a bit, and make them just the same. I managed to get them cut out, and you know how much I love bonus HST's, so I already have a project planned for the bonus HST's I'll get from these two baby quilts.

The Flying Geese units I'm making will finish at 4x8, so I'm using 4.5 inch squares on the corners. I want my bonus HST's to be 3.5" cut (3" finished) so I cut a piece of template plastic into a 3.5" square, cut that in half diagonally, and now I have two templates to draw that second line to sew on. I'll get two bonus HST's in the correct size for my second project from each Flying Geese unit in my primary project, no trimming, no fuss. Could I have made the bonus HST a bit bigger? Yes, but I wanted them to be 3" finished, so this way I get just the size I wanted. If I use scissors to cut between the sewn lines, my resulting seam allowances will be a little bit bigger than 1/4", but not much bigger. If I decide I really want that 1/4" seam, I can use a ruler and rotary cutter to get it. As long as my units are the correct size, what size my seam allowance is doesn't really matter.

I have so many quilts to get finished, and as I get more comfortable with FMQ, I get more ideas of what types of designs I'd like to try. What's really been bogging me down is how far behind I am on gift quilts. I don't mind experimenting on baby quilts, but stitching a new design takes a lot more time. Since I have so many BIG quilts that need to be finished, do I really want to spend the time taking twice as long to quilt them? I've decided that a bunch of quilts on the beds of my loved ones is better than a bunch of quilt tops piled at my house with dreams of fancy quilting. Finished is better than perfect. If I only meander on every UFO I have in the house, is something awful going to befall me? Is someone going to refuse to accept a quilt because I didn't do fancy enough stitching? (I can't imagine that happening, but if it did they'd never get another quilt!)  The more I think about it, the more I think I will probably meander on most of my UFO's, and experiment with new designs on the smaller quilts. Once I'm caught up, I'll be less stressed and have a lot more fun stitching out new designs. I am proficient at more than just meandering, but meandering is FAST, and that, I like!