Big Week

First off, with bated (sp??) breath, I can happily announce that I have made a decision. The rambling thoughts of "which long arm should I get" are thoughts of the past. I spent one last week, contemplating and investigating one last possibility. The rep from APQS was waiting anxiously to hear from me. She'd even gotten me a base extender (a $100 deal) added for free. Still I was not certain. That machine was over $15000 with the incentives of the Road Show, and to me that was a heck of a lot of money. OK, a helluva lot of money! The one thing I kept coming back to was a desire to have a rep closer than 2 hours away, should I need assistance, purchase parts, etc. On Tuesday I spent time on the HQ Fusion, which for some reason I never really considered all that seriously. It was more pricey, and that was probably the main reason. But after trying the Millinium and the HQ16 both, I knew that the Fusion was it. This machine is a big step up over the HQ16, and it sews like a warm knife through butter. Circles are round (as we'd want!), and this machine has 20" of space to sew. I absolutely loved it. It's a little more than I thought I'd spend, but over $3K less than the Millinium, which I had yet to really enjoy using. This afternoon, I officially ordered the Fusion!!

My other accomplishment is finishing my last and 52nd quilt for my Project Linus donated quilts. I am taking all 52 tomorrow to a local event, where 3/4 yard of fabric is given for every quilt donated! Count them...39 yards of free and wonderful fabric!!! The event is a total ZOO, but I love it. I learned that my region now has a new coordinator, so we should be having events again. The blocks for this quilt came from the flickr Quilt Block Exchange. I was going to machine quilt this on someone's Millinium three days ago, but after testing the Fusion, I knew I didn't need to. Instead, I used my home machine and finished it up yesterday. I love the modern look of the pink & orange. Way cool & sweet! There are seven quilts in my donation that have come from blocks donated by swappers that did my Spring Fling Round Robin. These quilts all came out so fantastic. I have two quilts which Kate sent blocks for. She has one heck of a block stash from her various swaps and Block Lotto winnings. It was tremendously generous, and children in my area will definitely benefit. So, if you find that you have blocks in your stash that you don't know if you'll use or when, I'd love to offer to give them a good home. I love scrappy quilts, and love to make scrappy quilts!
On Wednesday afternoon, I had a "photo shoot" on the back lawn. Despite the work of refolding them, I pulled all 53 (one is from my mom) of my Linus quilts, and layed them on the back lawn. Here's what 700 square feet (or so) of quilted love look like! I'm sure my neighbors thought I was cookoo! Actually, that is only about half of the quilts :0)

Here's a few more pictures in a flickr slideshow.

What next...Finish cleaning my basement out. I started that today, but it's got a ways to go. The LA should arrive in 1-2 weeks. Other things...finish off row for row robin, add on to a round robin, and continue with my business-y. Oh, and the absolute worst thing...I must start on Halloween costumes - my all time least favorite thing to sew!

Happy quilting