Weekly Endings & MQ Info Solicited (please!!)

I appreciate the machine quilting comments from my last post. You're all right, I can do a better job quilting than what I paid for. But not on a quilt that large (queen sized bed). My poor-little old Singer can not handle a twin easily enough to comfortably quilt. So...I machine quilt my smaller pieces (mini's and runners up to lap size), and send out my others. Which takes me to another question...

I have been pondering getting a long arm quilting system for some time. Last year I looked into it half-casually, and quickly quit when I saw the costs. Now, I am more interested. This is in part due to my difficulty in finding good quilters in my area, but more because I want to find a home-based employment outside of Engineering that I can do when my youngest starts school in 2 years (but going to work fulltime would not really be feasible because of school's hours, etc.). I LOVE to quilt, and I think that I have creative ideas. I know that this is a crazy endeavor, but I might like to give it a try. Here's where I need you all's help... Many of you do this professionally, or have done it. I'd like your thoughts on some things:

• What LA do you use & your thoughts on it
• Is having the LA worth the cost?
• Are LA's troublesome to keep running well?
• Anything else?...
• feel free to post here or email me msolomo1@maine.rr.com

Today's the day I am off to the Maine Quilt Show. I am anxious to see Sophie's quilt hanging (haven't gotten good pics of it at home due to it's size!), as well as the other 500. Before I depart, here's a few recent scrappy Project Linus finishes. Some scrappier than others...

...and the always (except when her not-so-loved Grampa comes to visit) happy & smiling Sophie laying with the newest stack of quilts

I dipped into my scrap strip boxes which are overflowing to make two of these. They were modeled after this quilt. I threw in the red square for a splash of color, just because it's fun. I like the pink and green one because there are green fabrics with bright pink dots and pink fabrics with bright green frogs. It's very playful. I can see more of this type donation quilt in my future - they are easy, you cannot do them wrong, and eventually they will use up my messy scrap boxes!

I'm not sure if this one ever was shown, but since it was washed yesterday with the others, I'm showing it here. It's uses up my Kaffe Fasset scraps.
And lastly, here's the quilt I had wanted to make jointly with my mom, but since her June retirement, she has decided she's not interested in quilting. Summer has other needs like putting her house & garden back together. So, I took the fishy scraps and put the quilt together myself. It's bright and very child-fun.

There have been plenty of other quilty adventures in my house too, but you'll have to wait. Soon I'll be showing a couple of fairy bags I've nearly finished, the progress on the SFRR3 quilts that I did - Go have a look, they are very pretty as always. I have spent 5-6 hours picking out the quilting on one section of this quilt - which I just realized that I never posted a picture of. It is a lap quilt for me, about 55"x75". I had planned to quilt it in 3 sections and then stitch them together. This worked for another larger quilt I did last year, so that was they plan again. I have always been luke-warm about the backing fabric I chose from my stash, so I never went beyond quilting one section. Two days ago I decided it was time to finish this so I started picking out (sigh)... I got solid red for the backing which will show the quilting nicely. I am an hour away from having it ready to use again.

Have a great week~