Two Quilts pieced by Diana - Finished 02/25/2011

Yesterday morning, once again Diana called and woke me up! LOL. I'm glad she did. After finishing her backing on one quilt, she brought two over to the cabin. One is a disappearing nine patch like her previous quilt & the other is one of those where the fabric needs no piecing, just quilting. Together we matched thread and selected quilting patterns. On the purple and teal quilt,  King Tut Arabian Nights is perfect.  For the other, I am expecting a spool of So Fine Pearl any day that matches the top perfectly and Bottom Line Statue is perfect for the back. So the plans are made & now all I need is time!! It's around here somewhere just need to find it! LOL

In the comments, you will learn that the gorgeous backing fabric "is F756 DECO DELIGHT designed by Fabric Freedom in London, England. These are my granddaughters favorite colors, I made it as a weeding gift." I have added some link there including one to the entire line.

Feb 11: Prepped (ironed/steamed) and ready to load. Oops! Need to widen the back first!
Feb 12: Loaded.
Feb 13: Basted, programmed & ready to quilt. Interruption after interruption has been the norm around here but alas I have both quilts programmed and this beauty ready to start quilting first thing in the morning. May just turn off the PC and the phone to ensure no more show stoppers.

Starting Over--Deleted the old pictures
While I have been taking apart Diana's quilt, she has been taking apart a quilt top.
Do you remember when you did not (know any better) trim and square your complex blocks before piecing them together? I sure do. It was Diana's turn. She has now joined the club! Meanwhile she is rejoining her blocks into a much less "friendly" (waving) quilt top.
This is a very good thing! LOL

Feb 21: Tip: This top is 80x88. To keep from using more than two vertical sections of backing fabric & to widen it for longarming, I added a 3" strip to each side for Diana. Since this will be trimmed off anyway it is a very handy way to lengthen or widen the backing. Save those scraps of fabric and those strips you trim off your longarmed quilts for just this purpose. The strips I used here came off the excess backing from one of Joan's quilts she didn't want. It isn't good for anything else but it sure has come in handy twice now.
Ironed...loading....basting...quilting...
Feb 22: It was my intention to finish this quilt yesterday or die trying. I died at 4 AM after contending with the same mysterious situation I had before beginning in the same location. What's a longarmer to do? Call Kelley, call APQS, call any of the wonderful support experts I know and try to figure out what is going on here. And now you know. LOL We all concluded it is the "friendly" quilt syndrome that is at play here. To stop all that "waving", I am applying the spray starch, steam and let dry method. This causes the fabric to draw up just enough to lay flat. I can also smooth out any waving left by adding some batting scraps under the roller at those points to take up the slack. It should then quilt smoothly with consistent tension.
Feb 23: Quilted.

Feb 13: Programmed this second quilt while programming the first one.
Feb 23: Got the backing and batting loaded. Still need to load the top & thread.
Feb 24: Quilted.