Marie0722

Gorgeous!  You make a great team!
Carol

I recently finished this quilt for a customer who usually does her own quilting on her domestic machine but thought that this one was too big for her to handle. Aren't the colours just beautiful? She had already drafted most of the feather design for the background, I just added the centre part as it was too much space to be left unquilted and chose the design for the circles. We are both very happy with the way it turned out.





 

Beautiful!  Love the feather design in the blue circles.

Beautiful quilt and quilting.

I agree, great colours and wonderful quilting too!

I recently finished this quilt for a customer who usually does her own quilting on her domestic machine but thought that this one was too big for her to handle. Aren't the colours just beautiful? She had already drafted most of the feather design for the background, I just added the centre part as it was too much space to be left unquilted and chose the design for the circles. We are both very happy with the way it turned out.





 

I recently finished this quilt for a customer who usually does her own quilting on her domestic machine but thought that this one was too big for her to handle. Aren't the colours just beautiful? She had already drafted most of the feather design for the background, I just added the centre part as it was too much space to be left unquilted and chose the design for the circles. We are both very happy with the way it turned out.





 

I recently finished this quilt for a customer who usually does her own quilting on her domestic machine but thought that this one was too big for her to handle. Aren't the colours just beautiful? She had already drafted most of the feather design for the background, I just added the centre part as it was too much space to be left unquilted and chose the design for the circles. We are both very happy with the way it turned out.





 

It depends on what you want it for. I don't use it for my bookkeeping, and I gave up on using it for invoicing as it just didn't allow me to tweak the invoices the way I wanted. But I love it as a database to keep track of all my customers, their quilts, my threads and designs etc. I find it easier to use than making up my own spreadsheet and would purchase it again.

Welcome, Maribeth. As for the computer system, I just went through the same process. First you need to know what exactly you want to do with it. Reading the old forum threads is a good place to start but I found I had more questions than answers afterwards. The next step is to watch the basic videos on YouTube. Write down all the questions you have... and trust me, you will have quite a few
The majority of people seems to prefer IQ over QuiltPath but I could never really get an answer as to why. I finally ended up contacting Angela Huffman of Quilted Joy because she was the only person I could find who seemed to be really good with both systems. And she was... she answered all my questions in detail, and I have ordered IQ through her. It hasn't arrived yet, so that's all I can tell you right now. Angela assured me I would be able to install it myself, and if I needed help I could just call her, and she'd walk me through. We will see how that goes... I am so excited.

I got Millie in September and did two small quilts with a meander stitch. This one I went all out and did my first custom work with rulers and free motion. So thrilled with the turnout.  
Each stripe has a different pattern( stripes, plaid, cross hatch, meander, loops). The first border is wishbones and the outer border is piano keys.  
@quiltedjoy

The amount of cluttered information on FB is just overwhelming, and if there is a good search function I haven't found it yet either. I have issues with FB in general. When I signed up years ago, it was a fun place to keep track of what your friends were doing. Now they are just showing you posts from people who pay for it. This is a little exaggerated but mostly accurate. And since I created a page for my business I have been inundated with emails by FB urging me to promote my posts by paying them. My page has more than 100 followers, and if I don't pay maybe 30 people get to see my posts, if I am lucky. So yeah, I stay away from FB as much as I can and come here for help and company.

Just a quick update.  I talked to one of my customers at the sewing club this morning and asked her why she was taking her quilts to another quilter instead of me (not in those words of course).  I just wanted to hear from her what I could do to improve my business, my relationship with customers, etc.  I could tell she was a little uncomfortable at first, but I assured her that I was not trying to coax her into coming back to me, just curious about the change.  She said that she uses the other woman for all over panto work, and would be using me exclusively for custom work - something the other woman doesn't offer.  She showed me an invoice from the other woman and her pricing was very similar to my new pricing, however, one thing she includes in her pricing is trimming the quilt and attaching the binding strips to the back of the quilt.  
gkazee, I really like your idea of making a sample quilt with the pantos that I would do for 1 1/2 cents a square inch.  Linda, your suggestion of having a sale month is a great one too.   I'll make up the sample quilt and promote my sale for the month of November and the first two weeks of December.  We'll see what happens.  
Thank you all for being candid with me.  I had checked around and found that my previous prices were about a cent below the average in my area.  I had been told by many that I wasn't charging enough, so I raised my prices a little after I got the computerized system.  Now I see your points about customers not caring that the stitching is perfect and just wanting to get the quilts finished quickly and as cheap as possible.  Also, I recognize now that showcasing all of my custom work probably scared some people off.  I think you are right - they see the detail and amount of effort in the quilting on those quilts and think $$$$$ cha-ching! and don't want to pay for that.  
Next year, I'm going to try to show off two quilts a month (probably lap size) - one with custom quilting and one with an all over panto.  Hopefully, that will convey the message that I can do both.  
Thanks again.  I really appreciate your honest feedback and input!!!!!  Thank you. 
 

I have always believed (and still do) that quilting makes the quilt. And when I moved from Europe to Canada and started working at the local quilt shop, I was totally surprised when I found out that most people don't agree with that assessment, that in fact most quilters don't actually like to quilt at all. They just like making the tops. And the quilting is not important to them at all. I love to quilt, and that's why I eventually decided to buy a longarm machine and quilt for others. I would love to add a computer to do the pantos for me because I find them quite boring. But I know that no one would pay me for that, it would have to be a business investment for myself.
I custom quilt all my own stuff, and that's what I show at the guild meetings, and that's what brings me customers because they are all in awe of my skills (which are far from perfect, especially compared to what you guys post here but if you can't quilt at all, you might look at things a little differently). But the majority of them stills wants pantographs because it's cheaper.

Absolutely fantastic! Very creative, I love all the details, and I love pink but would never have thought of a pink Halloween quilt. Being a breast cancer survivor, this is extra special to me. And yes, I want a bat bra too!

Look what I got to quilt!  It's a pink themed Halloween quilt, to display at our local hospital during the month of October.  Pink because it's breast cancer awareness month.  The Jackson Hole Quilt Guild rotates a quilt display every month at our local hospital.  The nurses and patients really appreciate it.  We've had a hard time in years past trying to find a pink quilt for the October display.  So we had the bright idea to make a quilt just for that.  Different people made the applique blocks, others sewed them together with sashing and border.  I quilted it, and just handed it off to another member to attach the binding.  A terrific collaboration.
Last May I took a few classes from Judi Madsen in Salt Lake City.  I just LOVE her work.  So, you will see that she inspired this quilting.  
The bat bra block is the one that really got me started with the quilt designs.  The lady who made it drew a spider in a web on the cleavage, so clever and so easy to quilt that design!  
Judi had just posted an applique quilt that she'd finished that had bugs in it.  She gave the bugs motion by quilting a swirly design under them.  I thought the ghosts need that swirly design too.  Remember, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?!
I used a wool batting, glide thread with magna glide bobbins.  Love those magna glide bobbins!  Angela Huffman is a great source for them and her delivery is super fast.
Thanks for looking!