Today I had the pleasure of quilting this baby quilt for one of my best friends.  She made this for her mothers caregiver.  I had so much fun with circles, in the ditch work and using my computer to have the quilting machine quilt ABC's and 1,2,3's.  Plus we even spelled out a couple of the little animals that were in the blocks. 

Preparing your quilt for machine quilting.

• Piece your top carefully.  The flatter the top is, the better it will quilt up.
  
• Trim away any stray threads on the top as well as the backing.
  
  
• Press your top and backing carefully.
  
• Your backing will loaded onto  the machine with the seams running horizontal.
  
• Backing must be at least 4” longer on all sides.
  
• Ensure your backing is square (90degree corners parallel to sides).  Wonky edges are hard to attach to the quilting machine.
  
• Don’t pin or baste your quilt.
  
• If your top is directional, mark the top edge with a pin and a sticky note stating so.
  
• Remove any embellishments.  Reattach them after the quilting is complete.
  
• Leave the cutting of scalloped edges until after the quilting is complete.
  
• Stay stitch 1/8” around pieced border to prevent seams from opening.

My son spent 2 years in Africa as a Peace Corp volunteer.  He brought back this mud cloth from the region that he visited.  His girlfriend asked me to make it into a warm quilt.  It has a wool batt.

This is Jenny's quilt  She made it from Marathon T-shirts.  I love the neon colors.

Spent some time Doodling around with the quilting machine the other day and this is what happened.  Fun stuff.

This UFO is now finished.  I'm calling it Hydrangea.

My friend Marjorie created this 3-D modern quilt which I finished quilting yesterday.  It is fabulous.  I densely quilted it using my masking tool to erase the quilt pattern from the 3-D areas.  It turned out great I think!