A quilt for Claudia, Mom and turn around

First, this is a quilt made by one (I have several!) of my best customers, Claudia

I considering myself VERY fortunate to have such wonderful customers... it's amazing!!! Love my job because I get to see and quilt so many different quilts

Semi custom quilting with a border/corner design from Anne Bright named Pearl Feathers

The center field is an e2e, also designed by Anne named Seaweed framed with SID.

Great design with wonderful even coverage and flow.

Wool batting and three threads, Signature and Omni,
two in shades of gray and a dark burgundy for the inner border.

 The backing... paisley print, what's not to love! Great fabrics!!!

I love to see quilters use good quality fabrics for backs.

It adds so much to a quilt.

The rest of my blog post is about my mom (NQR) and my turn around time

Helena, my mother is amazing. Born in the Netherlands, survivor of the German occupation of Holland. Came to America following WWII and marriage to my dad in the late 1940s. They became citizens and started a new life. Fast forward... we moved Mom here to Northern California with us following the death of her husband, my father. She was already in the advanced stages of dementia. So not easy! That was eight years ago and it's still so not easy. I had to set up a Conservatorship thru the court of California simply for the 'right' to take care of my mother. The cost has been incredible with annual hearings and accountings. It's insane! Advice... make sure YOU and your family have directives and a Trust you are comfortable with in place.

Friday morning Mom fell. She cut her face, we believe from her glasses. She was taken to the ER, despite a POLST. Cuts taped and unnecessary tests revealing... again, nothing. She is 99 and there is nothing 'medically' wrong with her... except dementia, which you can die of, but care is not covered by insurance because it's not deemed medical. Frustrating! Other than low O2 sats and a cough, she was released. I took her back to her care facility, went home for a shower, picked up a RX for her cough and spent the rest of the afternoon with her and listened to the rattle as she breathed. If anything takes her, this may be it... and it would be OK. It is heartbreaking. While I was with Mom, Michael went to Immediate Care because there is something going on with him. The PA could not figure out what after a few tests. Michael just called me, waiting in line for a blood draw, glad to find a lab that was open. It's a bit much and I am not getting any quilting accomplished.

Brings the subject back to quilts, turn around time and custom hand guided quilting. Custom quilting is tricky, especially estimating time. For the time being, I am not accepting new quilt work orders for custom hand guided quilting.

Presently my turn around is October going into November with any one of these digitized design options: e2e, e2e with a border/corner set or my custom e2e where I am able to change the repeat pattern or line up a design to a quilt top block pattern. Straight set, alternated or set on point, the patterns are set up on each block, linked and then run like an e2e. To change a repeat, I am able to take them apart, flip, mirror, alternate and then link them back together and run the new pattern that is created like an e2e. I've gotten really good at it on the Innova with Auto Pilot. BTW, my Innova, I have decided to name Helena, for my mother and my Auto Pilot system, will remain Hal because that computer does, on some days, really have a mind of it's own!

Many of my customers are happy with digitized designs and they really do look good! Maybe not as organic as hand guided because the stitching is... perfect... because it's digitized. Some people love it, some... not so much. That's OK.

Again, and I can't say this too many times, thank you to my customers. I appreciate each and every one of you so very much. I know that I have lost a few existing and many new customers recently due to my present turn around time and please know this does not set well with me. I wish so many things but reality is what it is and no amount of wishing will make it different. I will always do my best. Thank you for your understanding. Have a wonderful weekend. Take some stitches! for...

"We will be known forever by the tracks we leave."
Native American Proverb

Tot ziens, Jo

Karen's Cathedral Square

Cathedral Square

A two color pattern by Linda Ballard

Quilt made by Karen G

quilted by Jo @ Moonbear Designs & Quilting

with... feathers! feathers and more feathers!

Wonderful BIG setting triangles wide open for quilting :0) It was the dark fabric print that motivated my decision to quilt a feather design. Literally one triangle design, flipped, mirrored and linked to create all of the feathers in the center field of Karen's quilt. Have I mentioned... LOVE my Innova and Auto Pilot! The light fabric is one of the Stonehenge fabrics and really made the trilobal poly variegated thread sing! I used one of the original Fantastico variegated thread colors. Love!
 

This is the center of Karen's quilt. The same triangle linked and spiraled into a square. The triangle design is digitized by Jamie Wallen. A wonderful talented longarm quilter, now an Innovian. Yea! Jamie has done Utubes most notably on taming tension. I picked up his design, Feather Flurry on Digi-Tech. The border/corner design is from One Song Needle Arts by Donna named Sacred Journey.

 Above is a single version of Feather Flurry and below
a double mirrored version along with the Sacred Journey border design.

  

Thank you Karen

I love this quilt and enjoyed quilting it for you!

See you soon :0)

note: Linda Ballard will be teaching 2 workshops next month in Chico! May 7th at Honey Run Quilters at Cathy's and another on May 8th thru Annie's Star Quilt Guild. Two different patterns by Linda. Donna and I are signed up for one of them! Linda will also be our guest speaker at the May 7th guild meeting. Come join us!!!

Hot Air Balloons

quilted on a baby quilt made by Donna

A fun design by Dave Hudson

available from Digi-tech

The perfect choice requested by Donna for this quilt

Quilted with wool batting using an Omni thread

Love how the quilting shows on the Radiance fabric Donna used for the inner border

The backing is a dark brown minkee which is why I chose to use a darker thread color in Gray Slate. I also added a layer of thin cotton batting over the wool because the dark backing was shadowing thru to the top. Donna was happy with this little baby. Thank you Donna!

It's a good thing last week was productive as I can't say the same for this week. I finished a quilt last night for Janie and will post pix later with today's daylight. That makes two quilts finished this week. I do have lots more in the wings including 2 really cute Snowman quilts that I have been working on. Lots of applique and hand embroidery so they are being hand guided which takes more time to finish and fun to do! There are three more applique quilts waiting their turns, one for Linda D, Judy J and Sandy. Plus more booked until August! Annie's Star Quilt Guild's show is in November this year and everyone is busy getting quilts ready for the show.

A few guild responsibilities taken care of this week, time spent on my digital files and trouble shooting some format issues with Jessica at Digi-tech for Auto Pilot. Getting the right format that will run properly on older pre-AP designs is what we worked on. Very happy with Digi-tech. There are still designers out there that do not offer .pat format. (Note to other Innova/Auto Pilot users ~ .dxf will download onto AP and the system will reformat it into .pat however, they do NOT stitch out properly! Start and End points get changed and many do not run in one continues stitch) All of the patterns that Digi-tech offer in .pat run perfectly! They offer a great selection of designs from different designers plus digitized machine embroidery designs as well. Thank you Jessica!

Anne Bright and Sweet Dreams Studio also digitize in .pat format. These two, Digi-Tech and Apricot Moon are the resources I turn to for computerized designs. If you see a design on their websites you would like quilted on your quilt top, just ask! If I don't have it in my file, downloading and making it available for you is a cinch!  
 

 Enjoy your weekend

Tot Ziens, Jo

 "We will be known forever by the tracks we leave."
Native American Proverb

A Chevron Quilt by Beckie

Beckie had fun making a Chevron quilt for Ruthie for her MBR. Gray and white to match her bedding. A more contemporary design and fabric. Quilted with a simple design to fill the chevron shape and move across the rows at the same time.

Beckie always uses a wool batting that gives a wonderful loft that worked perfect for this quilt because the gray print fabric is a bit heavier compared to quilt fabric. The same gray fabric is the backing as well. Quilted with a light Ash Gray thread color.

The little keyboard came in handy for this quilt as I used many many push pins to layout this design. Below is the layout on my screen almost ready to stitch out the next section. 

Thank you Beckie! 

This quilt turned out beautiful, however it may have to be dry cleaned. We tested some of the scraps by washing, drying and/or ironing them. They came out wrinkled and stiff.

Some notes about the use of Home Decorating fabrics in quilts: I purchased a new quilt book yesterday, Adding Layers from Kathy Doughty of Material Obsession. It features a quilt made with home dec fabrics. Additionally, quilt stores are offering these fabrics, they come in 54 to 60 inch widths. Usually flat rolled on a tube, however I found a few that were folded and bolted.

Fabric content varies and are often treated with Scotch Guard or in a few cases, flame retardant chemicals. Designed to be dry cleaned, these fabrics may or may not wash well for quilting. Often they add weight to a quilt. That was the case with Joanne's wedding quilt. She used a beautiful contemporary 60 inch width fabric for the backing and was not happy with how heavy it made the quilt. I had trouble getting the bobbin thread to pull up into the quilt because of the heavy backing fabrics in both Joanne's and Beckie's quilts. Additionally, many longarm quilters will not accept quilts made with home dec fabrics.

Following 30 years in the home dec business as a workroom sub-contracting for decorators I've worked with lots of home dec fabrics and have played with some of it for quilts. Sometimes it works out, sometimes not so much. Gorgeous fabrics! Many quilters use it in art quilts.

Not saying not to use them in a quilt, however, if you do, play with the fabric and see what it does by test washing a piece or consider dry cleaning or not washing that quilt. Just be aware, it's likely not going to be the same as using fabric designed for quilting. Whatever type of quilting you do or like, have fun with it, learn from it and above all, enjoy your creation!

btw, the book by Kathy Doughty I purchased yesterday is wonderful! Out of 15 original quilt projects I would consider making 10 of them. I am cutting out one today and also purchased fabric for another at Honey Run Quilters along with the book. The sample I am working on for Theresa is also in the book.  

One last thing... for your own sanity, please cut off those selvages!, especially with home dec fabrics. When making custom drapes, the selvages are always cut off. Selvedges do not play nice and can do horrible things, especially after washing and dry cleaning. 

Just trying to help, I'll go to my (sewing) room now

Enjoy your Sunday!