Girl Gang DIY Sampler - digitizing in Embrilliance and quilting on the Luminaire - Part 2

Happy Groundhog Day! I think I'd like to watch the movie tonight. Moving along...

I was so pumped when I was able to quilt that little bee block--what I didn't tell you was all the trouble I experienced that afternoon getting the block scanned and the machine just generally not wanting to cooperate. I went to the wonderful Facebook Group Just Stitchin' with the Aveneer and Luminaire and posted my dilemma. Within 5 minutes, three helpful group members each made a different suggestion--and within 15 minutes, I was back in the game. 

Along with that came headaches—I am 2-1/2 weeks post-op for the cataract in my right eye and the left eye was scheduled for surgery today. But Snow-Sleetzilla happened almost 10 days ago. Most school districts are still closed and surgery was canceled. Hubs was finally able to get the car back on to our street. So headaches will continue if I keep digitizing, but watching instructional videos about Embrilliance keep the headaches at bay; thank goodness. And today’s high temp reached 54 and the sun was shining, so hopefully when the rain comes tomorrow, most of the garbage will be washed away. I got out this afternoon and shoveled ice for 20 minutes--great cardio and a little dose of Vitamin D. And while typing this, I got a call and my surgery has been rescheduled for next week.

Finally, some melting (taken today)

When I mentioned in the previous post that I wanted to start small, I meant it. After stitching the bee block last week, I immediately focused on the little star block. I have a set of three of them in one section of the quilt, and a set of five in another section. Each little star block measures 2.5" finished. All I'm doing is an outline of each star; I don't believe there's any point to adding a whole lot of detail to a very tiny block:

And here is the simple quilting design:

Like I said; simple--it took less than 3 minutes to digitize it (if it took that long). And here's the stitch-out--I could have centered it more, but I can live with it:

I also spent a little more time reviewing the center block. It’s been almost 10 years since I started quilting it, and Lord knows where my head was when I did it. I still think about removing the existing quilting that was completed on the longarm. We all know that frogging a quilt takes five times as long as stitching it, but a little thought in my head tells me it would be worth it. A lot to think about, but too much to overthink. This would significantly delay the completion of the quilt. It won’t be entered in any quilt show; it will hang on a wall in our home in the spring or summer seasons. ONWARD.

One portion of the block has a crosshatch design (which I love), but because the block is so big, I thought I would spice it up with some free motion quilting in other corners. The crosshatching was done with rulers, and if you use rulers when quilting whether on a longarm or domestic, one little oops! movement can throw the whole thing off. And that's what happened here. And minding that it is in the center of the quilt, I think about going ahead and getting it done since I like to work from the center out.

Not a full view of the block; another portion of the quilt is in the hoop!

Close-up of crosshatching detail--you can see the oops!

Close-up of free-motion quilting

You will know soon enough if I choose that route. If I'm going to frog the center block, I need to do it while I'm watching TV with the Hubs and the puptarts each evening. And that's when I have snuggle time with at least one of the babies, and I don't necessarily need to have a lot of dog hair mixed in...gee whiz. I think I just talked myself out of frogging the entire block, but I believe I will remove the crosshatching. 

For more adventures of will she or won't she, stay tuned. In the meantime, go make!