Maritime Beauty - Done

This week, I have a few projects that I'm machine quilting on my new Juki. This is my Maritime Beauty from the class that I took in April from Karen at Sew Karenly. I finished this workshop piece quite quickly but was waiting for my new Juki to use it as my very first machine quilting test.

So, yesterday I finished machine quilting it. I took the opportunity to try a binding technique that Judy from Patchwork times demonstrated here. She also has subsequent hints on her blog, so if you're going to try this, be sure to read all her posts pertaining to binding. It's all good info.

The technique requires a good bit of pinning and preparation, but then the stitching takes minutes. This 30" table center piece, even with the curved sides took about 15 minutes to pin and about 5 minutes to sew. To do this by hand, would have easily taken me a few hours.

Judy recommends pinning quite close together. And she recommends stitching in the ditch with thread the same color as the background fabric. See how it blends in. It's hardly noticeable. In the bobbin, if you use thread the same color as the binding, you'll hardly notice the bottom thread also.

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Back to free motion on my new Juki, I found it quite nice to stitch with, although, it does go fast. I have to learn to be smoother with my movements. I thought free motion was very "free"

but I am discovering that there is quite a bit of planning involved. I started in the center and tried a few different techniques as I moved to the outer edges. I used a small spool of coats variegated thread that I had no idea how cute it would be. It shows up quite nice on the black fabric piece.

The fabrics in this piece were from a bag of scraps that I bought at an auction our guild had a number of years ago. I have another rectangle shaped table runner that I'm finishing made from the same fabrics. The rest of the scraps are going into the trash. They're really not that nice. I enjoyed making my practice pieces from them and these pieces are going to the cottage. I'll make new projects out of nicer colors for the house.