Custom for Carol

This was a very fun quilt finished for Carol

Most blocks were quilted differently with two thread changes.

Tangarine and Lime Green. 

A tip I picked up from Sally Jo, Lime Green is a neutral on Kaffee prints and it works!

This is a quilt project Carol started hand quilting some time ago after it was basted. You can see the basting threads are still there, I pulled some of them when they got in the way. I was quite impressed that the Innova, Harley had no problem quilting a previously basted quilt. Yea! Carol decided to change gears and we decided on quilting designs of flowers and butterflies. I improvised with some butterfly looking feathers :0) I left in all of Carol's hand stitches and incorporated them into the machine stitching

 This is the quilt back/backing fabric

Happy Birthday Carol and thank you!

Log Cabin for Tina

The quilting on a log cabin quilt for Tina was finished on the Innova yesterday

Made with orange, gold and brown batiks
we selected a gold to brown variegated thread.
I knew just the design to quilt when I first saw Tina's quilt.
Feathers and Swirls on a diagonal to set off the log cabin blocks. 

Feathers are quilted in the light side of the log cabin blocks and the swirls are on the dark...

 

which created a secondary design in the center

 A swirl corner and border design frame all of the blocks in the center field. 

Tina described two more quilts she is working on. A red and black waiting for black batting. The second is a work in progress, a Tula Pink pattern from her book 100 modern quilt blocks with 25 completed. Tina describes herself as a new quilter! I'd say she is pretty darn good!!! Looking forward to seeing where she goes from here!

 I'm thinking a scrappy log cabin may be in my future!

Thanks for stopping by, enjoy your Sunday

AP training at Sew So Shop

Yesterday I spent the whole day at the Sew So Shop quilt store in Yuba City, also my Innova dealer. Jim held an all day workshop on Auto Pilot, the software program for Innova. There were 15 of us attending, all from California ranging from Redding to Riverside. Most were Innova owners for a year or more, one with a new Innova on order, a few interested in buying or upgrading, a couple looking to be distributors and me, the newbie!

It was very nice to meet some seasoned Innova owners as well as see the excitement of the newest member, Joy anxious to get her new machine. We sat next to each other and it was fun to hear her exclaim as she saw all the wonderful functions we have available. There was so much to go over, almost too much. My brain was fried by the end of the day! Jim did an incredible job of explaining the software on a Simulator. Then did some demos on one of the machines in the shop. 

I got allot out of the day, both seeing a few functions I haven't used yet and how Jim uses the program and functions when he quilts. Like most programs, there is more than one way to get to the same result. Learned allot from hearing questions from other owners and sharing ideas and tips with each other. There were three people there that had backgrounds in computer software and it was nice to learn how some of that works into the functionality of the program. I learned allot and as mentioned was brain dead as I walked out of the shop and drove home to Chico late in the afternoon. 

Today I am ready to put what I learned to use on a practice piece loaded on my machine and then get back to customer quilts. Monday, Jim and Nicky was here in my studio to replace a part so that is fixed. Plus I had the chance to ask Jim allot of my questions one on one then. We learned what happens when you "accidentally" push the red emergency button and how to reset it! Jim shared that with everyone yesterday. All in all I am feeling allot better about where I am and realize that I need to be patient with the process.

Monday Jim also brought a part that I needed in order to download my patterns that I used on the 'other' longarm. I have three quilts here waiting for specific designs chosen by their owners. Thank you Tina, Pam and Tava for YOUR patience! Also Barbara, a custom quilt for her that is almost finished :0) Thank you to everyone!!!

I will end this long post with some pix of a sample quilt for Honey Run Quilters 

with a panto quilted last week...

 ...with a new panto design that came on the AP software. Love the fabrics that Theresa used, especially the black and white with ants above and the fabric below is the backing.

Enjoy your day!

A Starry Night for Betty and Birds for Beth

This is my favorite block, love how Betty fussy cut this mum fabric :0)

Betty made this quilt from her green fabrics set with black and white nine patches.

It's a donation quilt made for a fund raiser to fight breast cancer.

Love how Betty pieced the back

A second finish, this one is made by Beth for her daughter

 It's twin size with a cream minkee backing. 

 She added applique birds to the borders with some couched stems with little leaves.

Above at the beginning of the stitch out, the birds are upside down, they go all around the perimeter of the quilt. Here you can see the layout better...

and how the pocket works for large quilts. This had allot of weight with the Minkee!

Quilted with birds

This is Beth's first quilt! She made the center in a beginning quilt class. Wanting a larger quilt to fit her daughter's bed, she added the borders and then appliqued the birds. She did an outstanding job! She learned allot from the class and it paid off as her top was square and flat :0)

Great job Beth!

Betty and Beth both picked up their quilts yesterday.

Thank you

Judy, Judy, Judy

Can you just hear Cary Grant (OK dating myself again ;0)

I had the best week! Several quilts completed this week, making progress and most important, a dent in the number of quilts waiting to be quilted. Yipee!!! A few pix... these are quilts made by Judy P, a guild member and we share the same birthday!  :0)

A baby quilt that will be traveling to Alaska soon. Judy picked this one up this week along with a second quilt she made for big sister that will also go to Alaska...

These prints are so cute and very much Spring. Don't know it for a fact but I bet she picked up these fabrics from Honey Run Quilters in Chico. Theresa made a store sample I quilted for her from these prints. Love them! Here are some close ups of Judy's quilts...

Quilted with Summer Buzz e2e

Little one is quilted with bubbles, as requested by Judy, is backed with pink Minkee and the second she left up to me. I quilted a mix of bugs and flowers called Summer Buzz.

Something I promised to share earlier are pix of the mermaid Judy made... 

 Isn't she wonderful! Her name is Shelly!

Here she is sitting on a small sample quilt I made with a batik print backing with seahorses. They were meant for each other! Both of these items will be traveling as well, very soon to Texas.

Judy was a vendor at our guild's last quilt show. That is where I found Shelly among many more gorgeous dolls that Judy makes. Shelly had two mermaid sisters that went home with Jill and Brandie. Thank you Judy! Enjoy your weekend with family :0)

Also finished Carol's quilt, made progress on the Kim Diehl quilt, one for Beth in Oroville, a breast cancer donation quilt for Betty and another store sample for Theresa at Honey Run Quilters. Pix later. Blogger is not playing nice and photos are taking forever to download. For now will leave you with a pic and progress on Amaretto Cottage.

Can you see something I goofed on the layout?

Enjoy your weekend!

A little bit of custom

Adding a post with some pictures of some of the quilts I am working on with the Innova

This is a little quilt made with a Kim Diehl pattern. A Mum quilting design is set in each of the snowball blocks with a feathered scroll design around alternate blocks to break up the small block pattern layout. 

Next I did some outline stitches around the appliqued leaves

using the steady edge ruler from Quilts on the Corner

Happy so far, I started some hand guided scroll fill design in between the outline stitches. 

After doing one border, checked the bobbin tension and it was way off.

Removed it from the frame to pull out those stitches :0( and loaded another quilt...

This quilt is made by Carol. She started hand quilting this large quilt several years ago after it was basted. The light straight line stitches are the basting threads. She brought it in to have it machine quilted. It's beautiful with some very busy prints so both the hand and machine stitching doesn't show allot. I left her stitches in and incorporated them with the machine stitches. We discussed adding butterflies and flowers so I am quilting feathers that look like butterflies :0) It's a work in progress with block designs and some ruler work.

Below is MidWinter Blues that I made with Lori's QAL ~ Humble Quilts

A good one to try out a b2b (border to border) design and lay out a border with corner designs around it. It's finished off with some SID along the border using the Steady Edge.

This is the back where you can see the stitching better.

Not too bad for my first one :0) yea

Hal and I are getting along pretty good today. Mostly I figure out ways to fool him so he ends up doing what I want him to do :0) and Harley is back to stitching beautifully!

Enjoy your weekend, hope you have as nice a weather as we have today
and find some time to get in a few stitches

S-l-o-w-l-y making progress and a name

To all my wonderful customers, I'd like you to know that I feel allot more frustrated than anyone at how long this transition has taken. Again, thank you so much for your patience!

Innova is really good about training, which is included with the purchase of each of their machines. I am looking forward to hands on training however it may not happen until the middle of May! One will be in Yuba City. Jim and the Sew So Shop are in the process of moving into a new building with the space to set up a training center. Jim is now the Innova dealer for all of California and the West Coast. Renea at Quilts on the Corner is covering Utah, Nevada and Arizona. I am hoping to get into her 'Boot Camp' in May. 

Meanwhile I am plugging along learning thru trial and error, some days more error, while practicing on my quilts and stash fabric. I have pantos mastered and have completed a few of those for customers. B2B and individual blocks, got that down. Tension is different on this machine, it's almost starting again and as on any machine, it's practice, practice and more practice, even on a longarm.

Learning the software is my biggest challenge. Auto Pilot is VERY different from the Statler system I used on the Gammill. Plus AP runs on Windows 8, another aspect. Which brings me to the subject of names for my machines. 

HAL is what I decided to name my Auto Pilot because, it really does have a mind of it's own! 

The Innova deserves it's own name since it is a separate entity and thankfully is able to run independently from Hal. A unique item on my Innova are it's handle bars, they are chrome. I have not seen or used another Innova with chrome handle bars! There are older models with black bars and all of the ones I have used at shows have grey metal bars. The chrome bars remind me of my motorcycle. After a conversation with Nancy at Cathy's Honeyrun Quilt, we came up with Harley! Come to find out, mine was one of the first to come out with the chrome handlebars, now they all have them! Not unique so I decided on a different name for my Innova, Helena ~ in memory of my mother. 

With this long post without pix I went back and found this photo of the bike. It was the last build by/for my late husband. I say 'for' because my son and I finished the the build in his memory after his death eight years ago yesterday. Chris has the bike now. A much younger Crystal in the background. Thought you would get a kick out of this old photo... many moons ago

Enjoy your weekend, Jo

Just now got a call, Mom is not having a good day so I am headed over to coax her into getting up, showering, eating and taking her meds. There goes the rest of my day. Oh how my life has changed!