Keryn has been feeling the colder nights and decided she wanted a big bedspread type thing to go under her other quilts. We've got a roll of thicker poly batting, which should be nice and warm, and I wanted to practice my freehanding on the longarm ,so we loaded some wide calico and had at it. This was tremendous fun, and I was more confident knowing it was just for us and the mistakes weren't on a customer quilt. I suppose because we're designers we kept thinking "Oh, that's an ugly shape" and being picky, but if you just keep going it all gets swallowed up and looks great in the whole.
I've done freemotion for years on the domestic machine and feel at home with that, but the longarm needs a shift in thought processes and the pattern of movements need to be imprinted on my brain. I figure after two or three of these 'practice pieces' I might have served my apprenticeship!

Keryn said "Typical! We get a computerised machine, and all you want to do is take the belts off and freehand on it!" I can't help it, this is what I love doing, but the precision of the Statler is nice to have too. This turned out really nice, and because I concentrated on big feathers it went pretty quickly too. Keryn has her bedspread to keep out the chills and I've got a whack of practice under my belt. Now one of us just has to bind the thing!After all those non-colour photos, here is the project that's using all the triangles.Quite a few Christmases ago , Keryn gave me a "Pensylvania Dutch" kit, consisting of many, many 2 1/2" strips of red, green, yellow and blue.

I just couldn't decide what I wanted to do with them, and kept waiting for the right pattern. I saw a blue and white quilt recently that jumped out at me and suddenly I had the perfect pattern, easy to cut from the strips and really effective in this colourway.I think perhaps the blue will be used in the sashing, (two green strips with blue in the middle?)Not too sure if it looks so good in the block, but I'll make a few more before I decide.

I'd forgotten, but Keryn cut herself a kit too, and now I've got all the strips at my place, so instead of using up MY stuff, I somehow seem to have doubled the original lot. Keryn is gleefully counting this as stash reduction, which I don't really think is fair. Oh well, I guess the back will be Bars, with some Chinese Coins strips thrown in, just to use them all up.

I think the girl has a serious over-cutting issue, but it's not her problem anymore, is it?.....