How Not To Do Straight-Line Quilting

I usually quilt my quilts on my HQ16 mid-arm, but I wanted to try to do some straight-line quilting on my regular sewing machine, so I thought I'd do it on this quick quilt I made using some nine-patch blocks that I had gotten in an online swap back in June 2009 (!). You can see some of them in a blog post I wrote here.

Because of the size issues with some of the blocks, I just put them away for a later date. Well, the later date was August 2011 when I decided to use those nine-patch blocks in a double disappearing nine-patch pattern.

Here is what they looked like during the process...the top couple of rows are the double ones and the bottom three rows are just the nine-patches cut into fours before they are made into nine-patches with four solid cream squares and one pink or fuchsia square...

I played with various layouts and didn't like any, so I decided to add a bright solid green that you see in the top photo (which means I still have a lot of the little blocks left...they'll go into another top someday).

Here's the scrappy back....

...and a closeup of the not-so-good quilting (but it will do)...

This will go to my guild's current outreach project for the local foster child program, so I'm sure the imperfections won't matter. I think the cheery colors will bring a smile to some little girl's face, so that is all that really matters.

I don't think I'll be trying too much straight-line quilting on my regular machine for a while. I finally bought myself some channel locks for the HQ16 and they do a great job with straight lines!

This quilt was finished earlier this week, so it counts toward my February total of yards used. February's total of 11 yards is now added to the 15 for January -- 26 yards worth of quilts in two months! Not bad!