It seems like quilting without a hoop is nowhere near as unusual as I thought. I was really interested to read the comments on my previous post. I’m thrilled with the results I get by giving up on battling with the hoop! The three bed-sized quilts that are basted and waiting for quilting may well get done this year now that I’ve discovered this. This will definitely be next up for quilting. After that it will be a whole cloth quilt that I have been wanting to do for ages.

A couple of years ago we found this little scratching post in a pet store. Smudge guards it like it’s made of spun catnip or something! We caught him in this pose yesterday, sleeping on it, it seems, while he guards it. I don’t know where he thinks it might go, but he’s making sure nothing happens! And just in case he gets bored, notice the two toys he has within reach. 😉


Smudge seems to have been featured more lately so we made sure we got some good photos yesterday of Lester, our wonderful house lion.

The little mystery quilt has been quilted. Now it’s a matter of figuring out what to use to bind it. I’m leaning towards a deep blue but DH is suggesting white. By the time I get the binding on, I’m hoping that I’ll be able to reveal it.

I learned something from quilting the mystery quilt — that I do much, much better with no hoop. I basted it, tried it with a hoop and was frustrated beyond belief. Took the hoop off and it was quilted in a couple of nights. 🙂

The baby bow tie quilt has been languishing with very little of the quilting done — and I think it was because of the hoop issue. So tonight I tried without the hoop and was amazed at how much faster it was to quilt and easier! I’m sold on the no-hoop method!

Smudge, sleeping sitting up.

This is the next quilt in the hoop. It’s an almost king-sized quilt composed of 3″ bow tie blocks. All hand pieced. I love this quilt as it’s totally scrappy and it will be fun to look at all the fabrics I used as I go through and quilt it. This was the first of the quilts I had basted by a long-arm quilter and I think you can see the basting in the photo.

I started working on it last night and have decided to do an “X” through each block. I initially thought that quilting through those seam allowances would be a nightmare but did a couple of test lines of quilting and found that it wasn’t so bad. I’m looking at this one as my warm-up quilt as there are two other large quilts basted and waiting to get in the hoop. My goal is to get them all quilted this year.

It’s snowing again as I write this. Sometimes I wonder if this winter will ever end! At the moment, the trees are starting to get that dipped in icing sugar look.