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Excited and Relieved


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I am strictly a hobby quilter, but do have some friends who want me to do some quilting for them on my Liberty Belle. Yesterday I finished my first quilt that someone else had made. I was really scared that I would ruin it. I was also worried because it was one of those cross-stitch kit quilts and I was afraid my needle would catch on some of the threads. I did the popcorn pantograph and am excited and relieved to say it turned out just fine. It may be a little too much quilting, but it was the best choice of patterns out of the 3 that I have. My Liberty sailed through with flying colors. I guess I shouldn't say it was the first quilt that someone else had made, as I have done 3 Project Warmth Quilts for practice.

So if any of you other newbies are apprehensive about quilting one of those embroidered tops....not to worry.

The only problem I had was during my last row. I was right up to the edge of my pins. It's hard to watch the pins and watch the laser at the same time. At one point I sewed into one of my pins. Could not believe the needle did not break. Just had to do a little wierd "unsewing."

I'm finally starting to have fun with her and not feeling quite as intimidated. But one of these days I hope to graduate to something besides pantographs. :D

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See .. it isn't so hard! ;)

When I get near the end of the quilt, I leave the top pinned to the leader but go back and put another row of pins right near the edge of the leader, then unpin the leader, then do a basting stitch right at the edge of the top and then remove all the pins. That way, I can stitch right up to within about 1/2" of the edge of the quilt without fear of running over pins.

I leave the top pinned to the leader while adding my second row of pins because when I unpin from the leader, I've lost my tension.

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You know....that is exactly what my teacher JoAnn Hoffman taught me to do and like a dummy I spaced it out. I really don't know what I was thinking....apparently I wasn't. Luckily I also have to put the binding on this quilt, so I will be able to cover my straight lines. I could just kick myself for not thinking about that. Since there is no piecing on the quilt I won't be covering anything vital. I'm a little worried about coming in closer with the binding on that side than on the other. Guess I better bring the binding in a little more on the opposite side to make sure they are even. Did that make sense? :o

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Guest Linda S

Good for you Diane! I have to tell you one of the things that finally got me to relax about this stuff called quilting. In one of Nichole Webb's classes, she said, "It's just a d^$# blankie!" You know, that is all it is -- it isn't rocket science, we're just putting some stitches in a blankie! I do still get a bit nervous, but I think that helped me a lot. Good for you in taking the step to quilt for someone else.

Linda

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I always think . . if the worst happens, no one will die! This isn't like brain surgery where one slip and someone is gone!

I think we worry way more than we need to and yes, I still get nervous a bit every now and then but it seem once I get started, the nervousness goes away.

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Thanks Judy and Linda for your input.

I love this chat room because of all the wonderful information you can gather from other peoples' experiences. I will get more Project Warmth quilts and keep practicing. I do feel a little more confident with each quilt I do, and usually learn something as I tend to make a mistake on each one. Ha.

Now I just need to take more lessons from JoAnn to learn how to do other things besides pantographs. Although I really don't mind doing them. I just need to get more patterns.

Onward and upward!!!!!

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Guest Linda S

Diane - If you get the chance, go to one of the big shows like MQX, MQS, Innovations, or Quilting on the Waterfront. Take some classes. I cannot begin to tell you what that experience did for me. I would never have come this far this fast without those wonderful classes and the chance to see the gorgeous quilts. Mind you, I still have so much to learn, but those conferences sure shook me out of my safety zone. I've never been so happy to be all shook up! ;)

Linda

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When I come to the end of the quilt while doing a panto I just run a line of basteing stitches about a 1/2 in. from the pins. Then I remove the pins in the canvas and run another line of basting at the very edge so when you stitch over the edge you don't turn up the edge of the quilt top and have to remove stitches. When finished I remove the basting line that is 1/2 in. from the egde. If you remove the bottom thread and pull the opposite direction that it was stitched , it will pull very easily.

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I, too, am excited and relieved. I just did my first customer quilt (way to soon, thanks to DH). I've only quilted 4 of my own tops before DH told someone I quilt and she was desparate to have her 108 X 108 quilt put together. Yikes! She'd taken a quilting class and this was the first quilt she made. It was for her king size bed. The lady she took the class from longarm's, but refused to do such a large quilt. She thought she'd never get to use it. I told her I was new at this and she wanted me to do it anyway.

It was HUGE. It required 2 separate border applications and I had to turn the quilt! I did freehand feathers on the outside border, a Rose Vine panto on the inside border. The inside border was a light lavender and I used a dark purple rainbow thread. The rest of the quilt was done with a rose and feather panto. These were the first pantos I've done. I like the front of the machine better, but now I'm not so afraid of the back of the machine.

I was scared, but I managed to get through it and it turned out nice. The lady was extremely happy with it and asked me for business cards. I told her I had not yet made any, because I really wasn't ready to start taking customers.

Guess what! She designed 3 different business cards and sent them to me via e-mail with a testimonial. How funny! She said she has shown the quilt to a bunch of her friends and everyone loves it. Yahooooooo!

Isn't this the most fun!

Merry Jo

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Merry Jo,

Good for you! The quilt sounds beautiful, did you take a digital picture

before returning it to the customer? If so, post it so we can all enjoy

it.

Thanks so much for sharing the quilting design you used. I love to see

and hear what others design. I learn so much from it.

It sounds like you re on your way to a solid client base. I don't think

there are enough of us longarmers in north county. You go girl.

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Linda,

Yes, I did take photos. I just need to have DH, the computer guru, get enough time to teach me how to post them. I took them, so they aren't great. He's also a really good photographer, so I'm going to try to get him to take some good pictures in the future. It was a scary job for my fisrt one. I'm so glad it's done and she was so happy with it.

A few of us N. County quilter's are going to try to start a small longarm group in the next few months. I'll let you know when we get going so you can come too! We aren't that far apart!

Merry Jo

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My 2 cents-- FWIW... I full float my quilt tops. I don't pin a darn thing on the quilt top! :o

I load my lining and batting, stitch a straight horizontal line across the batting where my leading edge needs to be, align the quilt top to that line (this way I know the top is loaded square to the table/carriage), baste the top edge and baste the sides as I advance. When I get to the bottom, I advance the quilt enough so I can baste the bottom edge, and then I can quilt all the way to the edges. Make sense?? And yes, my quilts still mange to come out square!.... Matter of fact, I find it *much* easier to keep them square by doing the full-float method. Have you ever seen the quilts that hang like an hour glass because the longarmer had so much tension between the rollers while quilting?

However, I know that many people do not feel secure doing a full-float.... But it works just great for me-- And less work to boot!! *LOL*;)

***Just as a reminder.... When doing custom quilting, I never do any heavy quilting on the top until I have "given it bones" by stabilizing with SID or basting through the entire quilt first.

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I float my quilt tops the same as Tina. I also baste the top about 1/4" from the top and do the same when I get to the bottom. I haven't tried basting the sides as I advance but I think I'm going to try that too.

Tina, what do you do when the outside borders are a little wavey? I have been educating my clients on how to put on borders but I still get a few that are wavey. If it's not too bad then I ease the sides into the quilting but don't know how I would be able to baste them without making little pleats along the way. Any thoughts?

Thanks.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Jean,

Sorry it took me so long to see this... (I've been out of town until yesterday)

I have a couple of different things I do, depending on the severity of the "fullness". What I do most often is to run a basting line down the edges and "ease in" the extra fullness across the basting line (just like you do)... Ya know, just enough to take up some fabric, but not pleat or gather. I have also added some extra batting to give some depth and fill out the fullness. I have used the bean bag trick to help distribute the fullness too. Sometimes, it takes a couple of these things to get a wavy border to behave. ;)

Main thing is that I watch which quilting design I quilt in the wavy borders.... definately NO patterns that have lines that criss-cross back and forth across the border and trap the extra fabric in pleats. Piano keys, swirly vines, and open freehand designs are great at hiding extra fullness because you can manipulate the extra fabric to the open areas. :o

I actually have a lot less trouble hiding fullness by doing a full float than if the quilt top were pinned!! Of course.... not all wavy borders can be saved by any method---- I always give the client the choice to reapply their borders if I am worried that there is just too much fullness for me to risk a pleat. :(

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Tina,

I'm a floater too. I baste zippers on top & bottom of backing

fabric and load it on the machine. Then I line up the batting

and baste it on. The bottom of the quilt top gets a zipper

and gets zipped on. Then I line up the top of the quilt top

with the batting and backing and baste it on. No pins!

That's where we go our separate ways. I baste the sides

as I advance the quilt but I quilt as I go. I don't have much

success "stabilizing" the entire quilt before quilting. I seem

to get puckers when I roll and then roll back. So I just

quilt and roll, even if it means that I have to change threads

multiple times as I advance the quilt.rolling

I think everybody has the method that works for them. I

tried several before I came up with this one.

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