One of Each

I got busy tonight after my bunco group was cancelled and the kids went to bed. After checking email and reading a few blogs, I took a deep breath and headed downstairs to see if I could figure out the bobbin winder for my HQ16. I had read a couple things about it, and it is a little intimidating because it looks like it is industrial. It turned out to be a breeze and I got a bobbin wound very quickly. I then got things going on the panel I started before Thanskgiving and quickly finished it up. This pass on it seemed a lot easier than my first night...maybe just less nerves from using the machine this time, or maybe because I have also been busy with free motion quilting on my Janome. A couple learnings from my first projects....even if it is a cheater, practice quilt, still use pretty thread...it is good to try different things in different parts of the panel and really good to hide bad quilting in a busy area of the panel...and finally, pay more attention at the end so you don't sew the panel top to the leader (this is the fabric that you attach the quilt to so that it rolls...it is re-used for every quilt and is just supposed to be pinned or basted to the quilt, not quilted to it - rookie mistake!). All in all, I am pretty happy with it...I tried different patterns in each part of the panel and really enjoyed the meandering and the loops; I will likely be using these a lot in the near future!

Then, I went upstairs and cut off the backing and binding for my "Do you see what I see" quilt which I finished quilting the other night. I need to bind this before my guild meeting in January to be able to get entered in a drawing for a free workshop next year, so binding is next on my list!

Today was my last day of work for the year, so tomorrow I will have lots of time to sew. I am taking the kids to their day care as usual and will then be home all day as we have the tile and drywall in our bathroom repaired. I am hoping to get Christmas project #2 started and completed tomorrow, and maybe to break that up a little I will cut the binding. Hopefully, I will get several hours in, then I can inventory Christmas presents and figure out what last minute shopping I need to get to this weekend!