QuiltBlog

What a beautiful Easter Weekend! 

I am so thankful for this beautiful world we live in and for the inspiration i gives us.  We have several trees in our yard in full coloful bloom and it just warms my heart to see nature prepare for this beautiful season.

As you know, I also embroider and bought a wonderful new machine.  It's a 10 needle and we are having so much fun.  What more could you ask for than picking out some beautiful designs, getting your embroidery started and then quilting while you are embroidering. 

I have my granddaughters Princess quilt on and the blooming flowers has inspired me on some of my designs.  Of course I just watched one of Linda's Season 4 videos too and am so excited to use that Peacock Feather!

Speaking of Peacock's, that is what I completed embroidering!   It was 10 colors, so no changing of the thread.  It took 90 minutes to embroider.

We hope you too, will share with us what projects you have going!  What inspires you?

I don' t know where all the time goes. I have been working on another show quilt and you could say it is eating my lunch. I have worked on it already over 100 hours and I think I may be half way finished, not quite. Some of you may have seen this quilt if you have taken the Show Quilt Class from Cheri Meineke-Johnson and myself. It is all hand-pieced and hand-appliqued. It is a beauty. It has been scaring me for more than a year now until I finally got up the courage to tackle it.  Maybe I'm the only one who feels this way, but there will be no quilt until it's time. 

  I have also been working on getting all my samples and kits ready for HMQS and MQS. My Statler has been going full time preparing all my student's quilts, while I am quilting on my Vision.  It's awesome.

  I'm so happy the 4th Season of Linda's Longarm Quilting is finished and is for sale as a series.  You can also watch it on thequiltingschool.com.   I had some awesome guests and I think the projects I worked on were the very best. I hope everyone will check it out. I know you will be inspired in your own quilting.

  Happy Easter to everyone! The Lord has blessed us all so much, I'm grateful for my blessings, especially my family and friends.

After dealing with a long battle of whip lash and neck problems, it has gotten in my way of quilting. I am getting there but it has truly "whipped me down."  But I refuse to stay there.

Today I needed some inspiration to finish a customer quilt.  It's such a cute one and is done with with bright applique flowers in bright colors and lots of wide open white spaces, just for me!  I was able to use a coordinating thread by YLI which is called Confetti in the fluorescents.  This thread is variegated in very short repeats.  It is turning out so cute.

Then back to the inspiration . . .Do you ever just go blank and need a design?  Then you just have to  go the thequiltingschool.com and pick a video.  I went to Linda Taylor.  Her newest videos are her Season 4 of Linda's Longarm Quilting.  You have got to check out her peacock feather she used in the newest episode with Pat Barry.  I am sure you all know that Linda demonstrates her quilting in each episode and this feather is beautiful!

If you are not a member of thequiltingschool.com you are really missing out.  We all have blocks and need inspiration but we can't just run to a class to get it.  Or can we?  You bet you can and for a very reasonable price you can be inspired any time, any where you want!  What a great deal to be able to learn anything I need to and see it as many times as I need to in the comfort of my home.

I know this is my job but I truly believe that being able to learn all we can about our machines, is extrememly important.  So check it out and be inspired and get quick fixes to those blocks!

I have been dealing with whip lash which has been quite a trial with horrific headaches.  Every day I have headaches, it's just how bad they will be.  I even ended up in the emergency room one evening it was so bad.  I have been going to therapy for a month and I am finally getting some relief.

 Of course, this has affected being able to quilt.  I am sure you all have had some kind of trial that has interfered with your quilting and know just what I am talking about.  I felt I was mourning because I had such a fun customer quilt to do but couldn't  get up there to quilt.

 Of all the things I enjoy doing, longarm quilting is my favorite!  As I quilt I refer to all that I have been taught and am grateful for Linda Taylor who has been my mentor for so many years.  How blessed I am to work with her and have her as my sister in law!

I always set the quilt out where I can see it so it can "talk to me".  By the time I start I know just what I am going to do.  The one I am working on now has applique' and as I was stabilizing it talked up a storm.  It has florescent colors and I had a YLI variegated thread that was just perfect.  My customer is so awesome as she tells me to do whatever I feel like.  She always pays for freehand quilting which of course is my favorite.

I am so thankful for some good days now so I can quilt and I know I will continue to improve.  Keeping a positive attitude is so important!

When I first started embroidering I knew nothing.  What was there to learn?  My wonderful machine threaded itself, let me know when my bobbin was almost out, if the thread broke I could go back to where that was and start again.  All I had to do was push buttons!  I was so excited I couldn't wait to start my first project! 

So I picked a beautiful flower design, some light weight fabric and some light tear away stabilizer.  Choosing all the thread colors was time consuming (I think there were like 26) but fun.  Hooping took a little bit of practice and I was off!  The design had quite a bit of satin stitching and as I advanced through the colors I noted that the satin stitch was not tight like it should be.  Now what?  My first thought was the tension, of course.  I read my manual and I had automatic tension.  Now what?  It must be wrong so I fiddled around with the tension but to no avail. 

Of course, my favorite tool is Google.  You can find anything on Google, including information about yourself.  So I Googled and Googled but couldn't quite find the specifics of what I needed.  I was frustrated. I know you know the feeling.  So I picked another design and didn't want to pick out 26 colors or have it embroider for 60 minutes, so I picked a simpler design. I was off and it turned out beautifully.

Does anyone know what my problem was?  I did not learn it for probably  a year.  The stabilizer and light weight fabric were wrong. My favorite site for designs is emblibrary.com.  I started searching on their site and found a place about stabilizer.  There it was.  There was a hint exacrly for my problem. Heavy stitching, and satin stitching is pretty heavy, needs heavier stabilizer.  It needs to be cutaway as the tear away is too hard on the stitches.   They specifically addressed the satin stitching problem.  Also my fabric was probably too light for the heavy design I picked.

So using the correct stabilizer is very important.  There are many sites that address how to use stabilizers.  I was a beginner and half the time I didn't even know what they were addressing as everyone has their favortie brand.  We bought our stabilizer through brewersewing.com and one of my co-workers gave me a link that was perfect.  It was a sample pack from OESD with instructions of how to use them.  That was a glorious day as not only did I have the explanation but I could see and feel the stabilizer and know what they were addressing.

The right stabilizer is an important thing to learn.  I love using Sulky's Dissovable and making lace book marks, ornaments etc.  Did you know that most dissolvable stabilizer is made from the jelly fish on the beach?  I learned that at an aquarium.  Once they are on the beach they will die so they use them.

I always like to just get into my projects.  I don't want to spend time learning all about it.  How many of you are like that?