Taco Salad Pattern

This is from an Atkinson book called "Let's Do Lunch."  Howeve, it doesn't look much like any kind of salad. I always stumped at what to name something.  this was a pretty easy pattern, and I think the Atkinson books and patterns are so clearly written with excellent accompanying pictures that you can't go wrong.  It has been sewn and quilted for a while, but I finally got the binding on this week, so one more thing moved from my UFO to my finished project.  Eileen

machine quilting

close-up of quilting

This week I am machine quilting a blue and off-white quilt from a pattern called Wedding March.  I originally saw a quilt on "Simply Quilts" using this pattern.  I think I need to remember when I see a quilt that I love that maybe what I love is the color combination.  I do love blue, but the quilt on the show was browns and reds.  I have 4 tops waiting to be quilted, well maybe more than that in my UFO's, but I am not counting those, so I decided to get started.  It took about a year and half to piece this thing together with all those 1 inch half square triangles.  Let's hope it doesn't take me that long to quilt it.  I discovered today that my thread kept breaking when quilting the areas with white painted or printed on top of the off white background.  Grrrrrr.  Changing the needle did not help.  I am using a sharp size 90.  I am using variegated Sulky 30 wt. thread.  It is color 4001 which is shades of tan and off-white.

People always ask how I can quilt big quilts on my regular sewing machine.  You see here that I just wad it up.

I love to use this heavier weight cotton because it shows up better on the quilt.  The thread comes off the spool nicely on this 8 spool thread rack for my machine,