What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Last week I wrote about making my temperature quilt. I had several questions about how to apply the binding while the quilt is still on your longarm frame. I explained this in a past post, but thought you might like to see it again (or see it for the first time!)

I’m willing to bet 9 out of 10 of you bought your longarm machine because you were not happy wrestling that large quilt through your domestic machine to do the quilting. Am I right? We solved one problem. But, then what do we do? We finish the beautiful ...

Last week I wrote about making my temperature quilt. I had several questions about how to apply the binding while the quilt is still on your longarm frame. I explained this in a past post, but thought you might like to see it again (or see it for the first time!)

I’m willing to bet 9 out of 10 of you bought your longarm machine because you were not happy wrestling that large quilt through your domestic machine to do the quilting. Am I right? We solved one problem. But, then what do we do? We finish the beautiful ...

At the start of December 2022 our friend, Helen Godden, started her annual Christmas Countdown Quilt-a-long. Helen is our Handi Quilter Ambassador who lives in Australia. She’s an accomplished artist and a superb stationary machine quilter. I decided to join in the quilt-a-long and take you all along with me. So today I will share my journey, some things I learned along the way, and the finish.

In the last post about this topic I showed you how I prepared my fabric with Helen’s design by tracing her pattern. I made a few changes (thanks Helen for understanding ...

At the start of December 2022 our friend, Helen Godden, started her annual Christmas Countdown Quilt-a-long. Helen is our Handi Quilter Ambassador who lives in Australia. She’s an accomplished artist and a superb stationary machine quilter. I decided to join in the quilt-a-long and take you all along with me. So today I will share my journey, some things I learned along the way, and the finish.

In the last post about this topic I showed you how I prepared my fabric with Helen’s design by tracing her pattern. I made a few changes (thanks Helen for understanding ...

If you have been following along with our Free Motion Quilting for Beginners series, you already know the importance of practice for gaining FMQ skills. I like to think of practice time as play time. It’s stress-free quilting time. Time to bond with your machine. No worries about making mistakes. No worries about getting out the seam ripper. And that practice time just got even better with something new from Handi Quilter. The very first Skill Sets is available exclusively at your local HQ retailer.

The skinny on Skill Sets

It’s a box full of items that will ...

If you have been following along with our Free Motion Quilting for Beginners series, you already know the importance of practice for gaining FMQ skills. I like to think of practice time as play time. It’s stress-free quilting time. Time to bond with your machine. No worries about making mistakes. No worries about getting out the seam ripper. And that practice time just got even better with something new from Handi Quilter. The very first Skill Sets is available exclusively at your local HQ retailer.

The skinny on Skill Sets

It’s a box full of items that will ...

This month star is Joyce's Star.

I’m willing to bet 9 out of 10 of you bought your longarm machine because you were not happy wrestling that large quilt through your domestic machine to do the quilting. Am I right? We solved one problem. But, then what do we do? We finish the beautiful quilting on our longarm, then take the quilt off the frame and wrestle that large quilt through our domestic machine to apply the binding. Let me ask, does that make any sense? I am going to share a little tutorial on how to apply binding on the longarm. Sewing the binding ...

I’m willing to bet 9 out of 10 of you bought your longarm machine because you were not happy wrestling that large quilt through your domestic machine to do the quilting. Am I right? We solved one problem. But, then what do we do? We finish the beautiful quilting on our longarm, then take the quilt off the frame and wrestle that large quilt through our domestic machine to apply the binding. Let me ask, does that make any sense? I am going to share a little tutorial on how to apply binding on the longarm. Sewing the binding ...

If you have never joined the Ruler of the Month club with Handi Quilter, I’m here to fill you in on what it is all about.

What is it?

If you enjoy ruler work, you’ll love the opportunity to expand both your ruler collection and your ruler skills. Each month in the six-month series we introduce an exclusive, brand-new ruler to the Handi Quilter line-up. Along with the ruler, you’ll receive video education and design ideas. It’s a great way to gain ruler work confidence and build your skills.

Members get special pricing and exclusive access ...

If you have never joined the Ruler of the Month club with Handi Quilter, I’m here to fill you in on what it is all about.

What is it?

If you enjoy ruler work, you’ll love the opportunity to expand both your ruler collection and your ruler skills. Each month in the six-month series we introduce an exclusive, brand-new ruler to the Handi Quilter line-up. Along with the ruler, you’ll receive video education and design ideas. It’s a great way to gain ruler work confidence and build your skills.

Members get special pricing and exclusive access ...

You guys, I got the acceptance email two days ago, but I couldn't tell anyone about it at first because it seemed so unreal.  I had to go to bed, wake up in the morning, and check my email again to make sure it was still there.  My Mission Impossible quilt was accepted by the jurists into QuiltCon Together 2021!

Just a Glimpse of My Mission Impossible Quilt

This quilt is my original design, made for my oldest son's high school graduation in 2019 and sized to fit his XL Twin dorm bed when he went off to ...

 Good morning, lovelies!  After my little R.B.G. block detour, I returned to the cheater cloth panel that I'd loaded on my long arm frame for IntelliQuilter practice.  Feeling comfortable with resizing and distorting block designs to fit less-than-perfectly-square quilt blocks, I decided to practice laying out and sequencing some E2E (Edge-to-Edge) designs.  Oh my gosh, you guys -- I LOVE how my APQS machine stitches these designs out with R2D2 (yes, that's what I've named my IQ) doing the driving instead of me!  Smooth feather curves, crisp points, and perfect circle bubbles with beautiful stitches on ...

C is for Charlie, 42 x 42 prior to washing

First Big News: A Quilt Finish!

My AQS Letter Home QAL (resized, recolored, and with EPP monogram block added) is finished!  I wrapped it up last night, carefully packed it in a box along with big sister Margot's butterfly/clam shell quilt, and Bernie just entrusted the package to the safekeeping of UPS for its journey to New Mexico.  Godspeed, little quilts!  May you arrive safely and be literally loved to pieces!

Letter Home Monogram Baby, Quilting Completed

I ended up really liking how the the custom quilting came ...

 Well, October is officially a wrap.  The trick-or-treaters have gone home and my husband, younger son, and I have set ourselves to the task of finishing off the leftover candy.  I've powered off my long arm machine for the night, even though I'm only 2/5 of the way through quilting the baby quilt that was supposed to be Part Two of my One Monthly Goal for October.  Here's what Charlie's quilt looks like so far:

My Letter Home Monogram Baby Quilt is 2/5 Quilted

 Good morning, my lovelies!  Welcome to another episode of Long Arm Learning, where the focus is on honing our machine quilting skills, regardless of what kind of machine you're using.

As for myself, although I spent much of the week mired in English paper piecing of another baby quilt top, I did finally get around the impasse of procrastination and got about 2/3 of my Modern Baby Clam Shells quilted yesterday.  The hardest part was starting; I really did not want to mess it up after spending so much time on the curved piecing and the appliqué.  I ...

 Happy Tuesday, friends!  Welcome to another Long Arm Learning linky party!  I actually have a finished (long arm quilted) quilt to share with you today, my FIRST finished quilt of 2020 -- and yes, I do know how pathetic that is to be finishing my first quilt of the year in mid-August.  My Sermon Scribbles quilt is FINISHED, as in quilted, labeled, bound, washed, and photographed!  

I started piecing this in November of last year, and loaded it on my frame for quilting in April, just as this crazy pandemic lockdown was settling in.  From beginning to end, this silly quilt ...

Good morning and Happy Tuesday!  My post for today's Long Arm Linky party got awfully long, so I thought it would be best to put my To Do's and Ta-Done's in a separate post this week.  Without further ado:  

Last Week's To-Do List:

Stay on top of the linky party and continue to spread the word to other machine quilters.  Get the linky post written and scheduled to publish in advance.

Finish the three remaining in-progress blocks for my MMBB quilt before I clear off my cutting table.

Trim excess batting & backing from Spirit Song

Digitize ...

I am finished with the borders of my Spirit Song quilt!!!  I am finished with the blue thread!  I am so EXCITED!!  I rolled the quilt back up to the top last night -- for the last time.  Today I'll do some experiments off to the side of my quilt to decide whether I'm rethreading with So Fine or with the lighter weight Bottom Line thread in the needle as well as in the bobbin, and then I get to start quilting background fills in all of those white/neutral HSTs.

With the skinny inner blue border, where I ...