I spy quilt

Ok, this one is finished and another one is on the machine ready to go. I used the circle lord swirls template for the center area.


A close up of the center area.


I don't know if you can see it but I did large bows and ribbons on the outside border. LE lace on the inside border.



I've been caulking around pipes before winter.


If you notice my posts have been very brief lately. That's because I've put my efforts into getting my house ready for winter and working on a couple of other projects instead of sitting at the computer type-talking. Getting a house winterized is not an easy thing when I work 10 to 12 hours each day in the studio and I must do everything myself. Each small thing accomplished gets me closer to completion though. Hopefully, this won't have to be done again for a few years.

Time to get my day started.....

It's been a quiet few days for me. I've been working but not quickly. I've also had to deal with these little creatures. There are about 4 or 5 of them hanging out on my porch lately. Bright colors usually mean poison. The bright blue tail keeps me away. They're very quick moving little things!

My batting order finally arrived on Wednesday. I got started on this quilt and had lots of breaking thread problems. I couldn't work on Thursday because I went to the dentist. Another tooth pulled. I'll get this quilt finished today.... somehow. The breaking thread is always a puzzle of finding the problem.


When I win the lottery I'm gonna get myself one of these! Click the word to see what I'm talking about.

Wow! To be able to lay out a whole quilt and watch the designs being stitched. Just imagine how creative I could be with customer quilts. Hmm... I wonder how they deal with constantly breaking thread and tension issues. I wonder if I can do McTavishing or Rickydoodles on it too? What size bobbins would it use?

Ok, I gotta stop dreaming and get to work this morning.

Slow weekend

It's been a slow work weekend for me. The batting order didn't arrive as I hoped. The quilt I had wanted to work on is still waiting. I filled in my time with other work. Saturday my sister in law came over to get more lessons. I finished stabelizing these t-shirts for a custom quilt. Now I wait for the owner to come show me placement the way she wants them.




Then I finished this lone star top. The customer came by to see it and has decided she wants a border around it too. It's an inherited top and there is enough left over fabric to make the border. I'll work on that today.



Then I worked on this top. My mother, who is in a nursing home, made the blocks and I'm putting them together.


My daughter has been sick with a fever the last couple of days. I've been taking care of the baby. She is a good baby but it's hard to get any work done with baby things all over the place. It's difficult to move around. I guess its a good thing that the batting didn't arrive.
I have a couple of other custom tops I'll work on today. Both are being made from clothing. I can cut the clothing apart and into pieces while waiting for the owners to bring me the other fabrics. Hopefully, I'll get the other fabrics this week. Christmas will be here before you know it!
Have a good holiday.....

Today's finished quilt. One of three I spy quilts a customer brought a few days ago.



The customer wanted simple panto work on it. I used the Circle Lord spiral template so my apprentice could learn how to do panto work.

I don't think you can see the quilting on the border because of the matching thread. I did a freehand flower and leaf meander design.

I stitched a swag design on the inside border.

After my apprentice left; I started loading the next quilt on the machine. I got the backing on and reached for the batting..... oops! No batting. My order hasn't come in yet. I checked to see if I had the ones needed for the next in line. Nope, not for those either. So, no quilting for customers can get done until it arrives. Now I'm kicking myself in the behind for not ordering sooner. The batting may arrive today or tomorrow. In the mean time I'm going to be working on the custom order quilts that are for Christmas. If I can get all the pieces cut and put into kits that's a head start on the work.

Hmmm..... I guess today is an in house retreat for me even if I didn't plan it that way.

Crazy quilt

Here is today's finished quilt. Another silk quilt. The fabrics are starting to deteriorate. I had problems with the fabric splitting when I stitched in some areas. I'll have to repair those areas before the customer can pick her quilts up.



Because of the age of the fabric and the problems I might face; I didn't think custom quilting would work. I did a simple Baptist fan design to keep any problems to a minimum.




I was asked what I charged for the heavy quilting on the star quilt. Actually, I'm not getting paid for the heirloom work. The customer had only agreed to pay .025 per square inch for custom quilting. I did the heavy quilting because I wanted to do it. I was frustrated and needed an outlet.


Also, the quilt top seemed to be asking me to do more than just custom. I sometimes do more quilting than I get paid for simply because the top needs more.

I wanted to prove I was capable of producing heirloom quilting. The customer gets a bargain and I got to work out my frustrations by concentrating on tiny stitches. I would love to have more people ask for heirloom work..... and get paid .05 psi or .06 psi for it.... but it's not something I believe will ever happen. I wouldn't want to squint at tiny stitches everyday either. A good balance between pantos, custom, and heirloom would be nice. Pantos for quick income, custom for creativity, and heirloom for occasional artistic freedom.
Why was I frustrated? Because of several comments I heard at the fair. People were commenting on the "quality" of the quilting. I heard that pantographs and simple custom quilting was "not quality" quilting. I kept wondering to myself.... who's idea of quality? The comments were not about consistant stitches or good designs..... only about pantos and custom work on quilts. Naturally; as a machine quilter, I wanted to jump to our defense but I couldn't start preaching to everyone at the fair. So, I worked out my frustrations on the star quilt.

Professional machine quiters are limited to what the customer is willing to pay us for our work. If a customer only wants pantograph because it's the lowest cost then we do our best to make the panto work look really good. Who is the judge of whether lower cost quilting is "quality" or not? If a machine quilter does a good job and the customer is happy; why is it not considered "quality"? I guess you can tell I'm still somewhat frustrated about the comments I heard.

I could sit here type-talking in defense of machine quilters all day but that won't do much good. There are always going to be people who have opinions about what is "quality" and what is not. I have to accept that one person's comment is not what everyone believes. A comment is only an opinion and not a rule.
My appoligies to those who are waiting for an answer to an email. I have several emails to answer but I haven't the time for staying on the computer this morning. As always, work comes before computer time. I'll read and answer as soon as I can.