Customer Quilts and February Goals

Wow I have done very well with my February goals so far. I have completed the 4 customer quilts that I had in approximately two weeks which was a lot faster than I thought they would be completed. I have another backing loaded on the frame that will be a raffle quilt in a fund raising effort to save the bay. I am then going to take a short break and quilt one of my UFOs before starting on a set of twin sized quilts. Wish I could quit my day job and just do this, much more fun. Maybe some day.

One of the quilts I did recently was a beautiful 1930's quilt that Kathy V. from my quilt guild made for her mom. Thanks Kathy for letting me post pictures.

Long Arm Tips

I am doing well with my goals for February. I complete two customer quilts over the weekend and have the backing for the 3rd quilt loaded and ready to add the batting and the top to it. This made me think that anyone that has not taken a quilt to a long arm quilter to be quilted before might need to know some specifics of how to prepare your quilt so thought I would post some of the tips here.

1. Do not embellish your quilts with lace, buttons etc. until after the quilting is complete.
2. Clip all loose threads from the back of your top. You don't want any of those threads to shadow through.
3. Make sure your top and backing are well pressed.
4. Most important factor is to make sure the backing fabric is squared up. If it is "wonky" it can't be loaded properly on the rails. Also the backing needs to be 6 to 8 inches wider and longer than the quilt top. This allows for room to attach the quilt top to the rails both top and bottom plus the extra is also needed on the sides so that clamps can be attached so that your top will be nice and flat after quilting.
5. Be sure to check with your long armer on size limitations. A 10 foot quilt frame can accommodate up to queen size, a 12 foot king or oversized king. Quilts can usually be loaded with either the width or the length of the top attached to the rails but if you have a large quilt be sure to check with the long armer before piecing the backing. (If a backing has one or two seams in it I load the quilt with the seams running the same direction of the rails so there won't be any bulk or lumps when rolling the quilt. On a very large quilt where only one side is small enough to be able to attach to the frame the backing should be pieced so that the seams run across the shorter side of the quilt).

January Reflections

Nancy on the Stashbusters groups posted her reflections looking back over January and I thought it was a great idea. Since I have not kept track on paper I will just have to wing it this month but below is a listing of my quilting accomplishments for January.

1. Turned in two charity quilts at January meeting (quilted over the holidays)

2. Completed 3 spring runners (from "new" fabric) picture of one of them is attached here, and 1 patriotic runner from stash

3. Completed first UFO, kids airplane quilt started the end of December 2007, all fabric from stash including a pieced backing.

4. Completed horse quilt which was started on New Years Eve. All fabrics from stash.

5. Quilted 1 patriotic charity quilt (to be turned in at February meeting)

6. Used up (or at least cut into) approximately 29 yards of fabric, 24 of which was from stash.

In addition to the personal quilting I quilted two customer wall hangings and two table runners.

My goals for February are to quilt 4 customer quilts (2 in house, 2 to be here this weekend) and to finish at least the top to hand-dyed heart quilt I am making, and continue to use at least twice as much fabric from stash as I purchase new.

A Little More Fabric

I have been trying to bust stash, to buy fabric only when I need something. I was so proud of myself the other day. I had some black fabric with tiny hearts on it that I wanted to use for a background on a quilt that I am currently making. Well of course there wasn't enough and luckily when I went back to the store they had another bolt. Ok, since I wasn't following a pattern, how much to buy.? I decided to be "good" and to get just what I need so only bought a yard and felt very proud of myself. Well that feeling lasted for the evening until I found that I AGAIN still didn't have enough fabric and had to go buy one more yard. In this case I could have saved the gas by buying a little more than I thought I needed the first time.

Dwirling

I purchased the new "Pajama Quilter Reloaded" DVD at Christmas time as a present to myself and have been watching it and practicing drawing some of the patterns. This is the first one that I have actually tried on a quilt. It is called dwirling and it is fun and relaxing. I need to practice getting my rows a little more even but what fun. I finished this quilting last night. The quilt was pieced by Carol of our quilt guild and will be donated to charity once the binding is complete.

This Week

I try to make a mental list of what quilting projects I want to tackle each week. I am lucky that I didn't think to do that this week as I have not had any time to spend in my sewing room. I did manage to sneak in a few minutes here and there working on bindings so I did manage to get this airplane kids quilt done. It was nice to sit under it on these cool evenings sewing the binding while watching TV in the evenings.

Long Arm

The necessary parts are on order from Nolting and should have shipped today. Hopefully in a couple of days my new encoder will be here and I will be able to use the stitch regulator again. I am surprised to find that after I settled down a bit I actually am enjoying doing meander and swirls without the regulator. The machine seems to be quieter as the motor stays at a constant speed.

I finished piecing a quilt backing together tonight using a lot of various blues from my stash and have it loaded on the frame. I hope to load a patriotic charity quilt on the frame tomorrow night and start using The Pajama Quilter Reloaded DVD method of "dwirling" to quilt it.