Another goal accomplished!

A couple of weeks ago, I set up some July goals for myself. I didn't publish them because I wanted to see how monthly goals would work out for me. Apparently, it's working pretty well! At the top of my list was the 2008 BOM quilt that I got assembled on Sunday. The next thing was to quilt my Milky Way quilt. I had loaded this quilt onto the machine on July 3rd and it has sat like that ever since. Until Monday night. I prepped the machine, wound bobbins and loaded thread. Last night, I worked for a bit and gave up after about 2 and a half hours.

I had decided that I wanted this quilt to have some special quilting on it. While the all over designs that I have been doing are nice, they are sort of Plain Jane compared to the awesome quilting that is done at the shop that I see every time I am there. And since this is one of my favorite quilts, I decided that it should have something a little more special. I thought that the l's and e's would be perfect in the outer piano key border and just a wavy line for the inner border. And of course loops and stars for the center of the quilt.

I had some helpers. Well, Maisy watches patiently...



... Max hides upstairs because he doesn't like the clicking that is made when advancing the quilt. But when the machine stops, he runs downstairs expectantly...



... as if to say, "Oh, good! You're done! Can you sit down now so you can hold me?" His tail was also wagging incessantly. I guess I should have done a video. :-

So after 2 evenings of quilting and a lot of pinning, unpinning and repinning, I finished the quilt!











I probably should have done a wavy, loopy line for the inner border, but by the time I realized that it could look better, I had a whole row of the wavy line done and I was just NOT going to rip anything else out unnecessarily!

It would definitely not win any awards, but at least I have ventured out of the Over-All-Pattern box. And it will keep me and my dogs warm. I think it looks awesome! And it is definitely something that I know I can do again! :)