2014 A Lovely Year of Finishes–February Goal

For the past week or so I’ve been thinking a lot about the goal I wanted to make for February.

I’m tempted to have it be the remaining 8 blocks I feel I need to make for the Fairy Tale BOM that I didn’t originally plan to do.  I do really want to finish them and put the quilt together so I can check that off my list BUT I had another personal goal for 2014 that I really feel that I need to get started on.  And there’s nothing like ‘ A Lovely Year of Finishes’ to motivate me to do that.

A few years back I purchased a Janome 1600P and a queen size frame.  I’ve quilted a few quilts on it but I’m still not comfortable with it.  I like it a lot but I’m not sure if long-arm quilting is for me yet… I really love making the tops and I love sending them to be quilted and get them back and bind them.  The process is quick and I don’t have to worry about ruining my own hard work with a sub-par quilting job.  I feel more comfortable leaving it to the professionals.  But I also know I’m not going to feel more comfortable until I actually take the time to learn the machine, quilt some quilts, and see how it goes.  My goal in 2014 is to do just that.  I’m going to use my machine enough to know if it is or isn’t something I want to do more in the future.

It’s been so long since I’ve loaded a quilt onto my long arm that at first I couldn’t remember what I was doing.  I just had to step away and think for a bit.

When I came back I had it figured out and the rest went smoothly.

Anyone recognize the quilt I have loaded on there?  Yup – it’s the top I made for last year’s Quilt Along – My Favorite Blocks!

This is probably the top that has been sitting unfinished the longest in my pile so I figured it was time to mark it off the list too!

And..I just thought this was cute shot of the owl block with my machine!

Since this is still one of my first quilts to quilt on my own I don’t want to thread color to be too visible.  I’ll be using a lot of the neutrals from Sarah Vedeler’s Aurifil Collection – Silk Stars.

With all that said, I’m now ready to declare my February goal to start and finish quilting my ‘My Favorite Block’ Quilt Top.