What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

I don’t typically try to offer anyone any information on HOW to use a longarm machine. There are so many fabulous quilters out there who teach great classes and have so much good information to share, and I don’t feel I’m up to that level. My longarm quilting advice is usually limited to helping other longarm quilters turn their hobby into a business.

However, with the last few quilts I’ve done, I’ve been mulling over the little things I do to keep the actual quilting part from stressing me out. I LOVE machine quilting, and ...

Letztes Jahr im Oktober hatte ich auf Grund eines anderen Projekts diverse Stoffe in meinen Lieblingsfarben in einer Restkiste gesammelt. Zusammen mit gerade gemachten Jelly Rolls für das (mittlerweile geschlossene) Büro / Onlineshop in den gleichen Farben bot sich an, etwas neues zu machen. Du kennst das: kaum, dass man an etwas arbeitet, oder gearbeitet hat, fällt einem schon was Neues ein....

Am Anfang stand eine Idee ...

I recently quilted a Bali Wedding Star quilt for a customer, Sharon, from New Jersey. This quilt is a Judy Niemeyer Quiltworx pattern, paper foundation pieced, and it’s an undertaking!

Sharon’s quilt was all batiks for the colored bits, and various cream fabrics for the background. Totally scrappy, totally works. This was as good a photo as I could get of the entire thing when I was finished. You kinda have to tilt your head sideways — haha!

Also, it was very difficult to get any good photos of this while I was quilting. I tried several different angles ...

 I'm killing time...the last half hour before hubby takes me to Hamilton Airport, to get on the bus to Pearson Airport.  In Toronto I'll get on a plane to Heathrow in London.  

The bucket list is getting another item crossed off - I'm attending the Birmingham Quilt Festival.  Today I made a couple little cord-minders - one each for my phone and tablet.

It’s always an honor when someone makes a quilt from one of my patterns, and then asks me to quilt theirs for them! My most recent one came from Linda R., who made a version of my Chariton Sampler quilt, which was the 2016-2017 BOM for Sew Sweet Quilt Shop.

Here’s my original version so you can see the quilt full out:

I didn’t have space to take a picture of Linda’s flat out once I finished, but I did the best I could to get some photos so you can see the quilting, and some ...

If you’re a Quilter for Hire, then you know that your longarm machine is the heart of your business. It’s probably THE toughest decision you had to make when you were getting started — what machine to buy?

I know lots of quilters for hire who have more than one machine. It’s a huge investment! But oh, so worth it.

Even if you own a longarm machine simply to quilt for yourself, it’s still a big decision, and worth doing the research for. It saves a lot of frustration once you get going.

Since the beginning of ...

In meinem letzten Newsletter habe ich geschrieben, dass ich mir ein neues Projekt für Jelly Rolls ausgesucht habe. Frische Jelly Rolls hatten mein Regal im Quiltbüro gefüllt und mich direkt 'aufgefordert', endlich mal wieder was mit denen zu machen. Kann man verstehen, wenn man das Bild sieht, oder?

Mein Projekt 'Sprinkles on Top' stammt aus dem Buch 'Jelly Filled' von Vanessa Goertzen (lellaboutique.com)

Ausgesucht habe ich mir dafür einen Graue - und eine Schwarze Jelly Roll aus meinem Sortiment. Für den Hintergrund sind in der ...

Sunday afternoon sewing time was quite productive this week. I trimmed the Stip Mirage quilt for my great niece and made the label for her quilt. I made the label for my Barn Star Sampler, and I got the binding sewn to the front and have been working on hand stitching it to the back.… Continue reading WIP Progress

The most recent custom quilt to come off my frame is this gorgeous creation by my customer, Peggy B.

The pattern is Baltimore Garden by Barbara M. Burnham.

There is so much wonderful appliqué on this quilt, and Peggy’s stitches are perfection!

There wasn’t much I could do with the quilting to make this any more epic than it already is; but Peggy and I discussed some options for the various parts, and here’s what we came up with.

I decided to make each block look as if it was in a circle.

Then I filled in ...

 First - the January completion.  This is the top I pieced in the fall up in Tobermory.  It's ready for a label & the washing machine.

I'm very happy with the way it turned out.  And I used a new-to-me panto which I'm also pretty happy with.

I finished my Double Dip quilt! I was aiming for a very old fashioned, vintage quilt look and I think I achieved that goal. It’s a cheery little quilt that makes me think of sunshine and blue skies. Pattern by Kairle Oakes, Virgin River Quilt Co. I purchased new fabric for the top, but was… Continue reading First Finish of 2025

One of the things that took up a lot of my time last year, along with the fact that I’m in the process of building a second house at the ranch, was that I agreed to make three large t-shirt quilts for a grieving family. It felt like a monumental task, and I had to… Continue reading January Recap – Quilty Version

My bestie, Victoria Findlay Wolfe, has a new book out. It actually came out in September, but I took time to read all the way through mine before posting about it. It’s so wonderful!

It’s called “The Quilting Experience: A Celebration of Community and Patchwork Patterns”.

This book is a lovely, hard-cover book with soooo many stories included. Stories from quilters about why they quilt, how they got started, special projects they’ve made, what quilts mean to them, fun they’ve had at quilting events or in quilting groups, and so much more.

And there are lots ...

I often wonder why I even have a blog anymore.  I hardly ever post (it's been months) and I've yet to figure out how to attach my custom domain (aquiltedpassion.com) to Blogger.  Alas, I'm here and there's no time like the present for an update. 

Most of my free time has been spent in the gardens. You can read about my gardening journey here,  here, and here. Be on the lookout for a gardening update in the near future!  But, I have done some sewing/quilting during the last several months.   

After I finished my ...

 What happened to the past few months!  Well:

This was the last group project that I organized.  It was for the Binbrook guild and I had "planned" to do a demo on back-basting at the June meeting, to end the season.  All the background squares were either white, cream, grey, or black, with text of some kind.  All the center circle pieces were somewhere between yellow and red.

Whew! Just unloaded a huge client quilt from the longarm. 106” X 113” of snuggly flannel for a lucky little boy! Quilted with edge to edge digital design, Tire Tracks from Urban Elementz. This quilted up so nicely! I know my client will be pleased. She was so hard on herself about the quality of… Continue reading Saturday Stitching

Victoria Findlay Wolfe has a new series of work now showing! She worked hard on these pieces over the last couple years, which means she kept me busy with these pieces as well. I have to say I breathed a big sigh of relief when we finished the last one for this exhibit!

There will be more in the future, but for now, we are both moving house (which was coincidental good timing that we are both moving at the same time), so she is taking a break from this series, and I’m just doing random stuff for a ...

I finished the custom quilting on my client’s Convex Illusions quilt and she is coming to pic it up today. It’s a gift for her one of her grandsons. This was a really cool one to work on. I had a lot of fun watching it change throughout the quilting process.

I mentioned a few days ago that I would have some exciting news to share soon regarding a client quilt. Every year, the Ogallala Quilters Society hosts the Ogallala Quilt Festival in Dimmitt, TX. It’s a prestigious show and I have some clients that enter something every year. This year one of the quilts I… Continue reading A Blue Ribbon!