Sharing a Whoop Whoop Friday amongst friends

This  Whoop Whoop Friday post is an opportunity for me to share the work of two very good friends. Last weekend, we had planned a quilty sleepover. My kids were with their dad so we had the house to ourselves. National/Worldwide Quilting Day or not,  for us, it was simply some dedicated time to quilt with minimal outside obligations. With a little moving of furniture, we had our sewing stations set up and the Busy Needle B&B was ready to roll. Miss J had three projects:  a lovely squares on point quilt (I think that was the Liberty on Point) that she needed to finish stippling the centre & stencil in the corner angles, a pink squares top to finish, and she wanted to quilt her latest Peaks quilt, giving her two quilts she wanted to try on the longarm. Miss G had some piecing to do to finish her latest Peaks quilt top, which was massive. I wanted to get caught up on my Sugar Block Club BOM  blocks and if I got something else done, that would be great too. We did only have about 24 hours and some people expect to sleep. High expectations, right? 🙂

Miss J finished the Pink Squares top in an hour or so, adding a border top & bottom of the perfect fabric found in my stash. After a little practice session on Indy the longarm, we loaded Pink Squares. I must point out that I use the Red Snappers and while I do like them, it is WAY faster to load a quilt when you have more than one person doing it! Perhaps I need child minions for that but I digress.  It was her first time using the longarm and it she took to it easily. Miss J is a squares & stippling kind of gal most of the time and boy does she crank out the quilts! You should see the state of her machiners quilting gloves. Now understand that the longarm is in my attic bedroom and Miss G & I were one floor down. I’d be sewing along and then hear the longarm stop. I’d call up to ask if  Miss J was ok and would hear a plaintive wail of “Bobbbiiiinnnn!”. Miss J knows perfectly well how to change a bobbin in her domestic machine but she wasn’t so keen on sticking her fingers under where she couldn’t really see to get Indy’s reloaded. As many longarmers know, when you first get started, it’s like learning how to sew again because you’re using a different set of muscles and there is a natural tendency to tense up your shoulders. These bobbin breaks were a good excuse for Miss J to have a stretch and have a bit of a chat as it gets lonely sewing up there by yourself too. She was doing a loopy loop stipple, which takes a good many bobbins which was a good one to start her with so she was forced to take a break.

The quilt was made for a single bed and she nearly finished it before supper.  And I thought I was a Speed Demon…

After supper, she finished it up and trimmed it, ready for binding.  Satisfied with a finish, she carried on with stippling with her DSM on the Liberty on Point and we found a stencil she liked amongst my collection. It was her first time using a stencil as well. Lots of firsts for Miss J this weekend.

Miss G was getting tired of joining up the seams of her Peaks 2 quilt but it was coming together very nicely. She opened the seams so that the points would match up and they did so beautifully. Another friend of ours, Miss L, will be proud. 🙂

Sunday morning Miss J was up at the crack of dawn, though I didn’t hear a thing. She finished the stippling and had done the corner stencils before I even made it to the breakfast table. After a cuppa, she wanted to get right on Indy again, this time with a pantograph, another first. We loaded up her Peaks 2 quilt, the double hourglass, and she got started. She made very good progress by lunchtime and Miss G finished her top as well.

After lunch, Miss J finished up her pantograph while I started cutting binding strips for her. Miss G got on with pressing her seams. After Miss J was finished (yes, that’s now quilt N°3!), we took the opportunity to load Miss G’s double hourglass on Indy and pin basted so she could do it by machine on her new Bernina at home. Pin basting on the longarm is so much easier on the knees and with three of us, took us only about a half an hour to do a queen-sized quilt.

And me? In between bobbin runs, tea & biscuits breaks, binding making, and meals, I got caught up on my Sugar Blocks.

The house was pretty quiet Sunday evening, just me & the cat. Little bit of quiet time to work on this little number that I’ve finally finished quilting by hand. It’s my version of the  mini ornate curvy pattern from Christina at The Sometimes Crafter. I was originally going to combine some handquilting with machine quilting as it’s difficult to see the handquilting on the patterned fabric but I got so into the handquilting, I decided to continue. The quilting shows prettily on the back.

I think it would be fun to have a Busy Needle B&B weekend once a month for local quilters.  Even if someone can just come for one of the afternoons, I think we get a lot done with such focused time and it’s very enjoyable. It worked in pioneer days. Why not now when we’re all so busy we can’t hardly think straight? Take an afternoon or a weekend and just decompress. Just think how refreshing that could be.

Happy Quilting!