Under my needle today

It's a beautiful fall day in North Carolina today, a perfect day for quilting.  This is the 5th of 6 quilts a customer gave me to finish for her.  I'm sewing the binding onto each one as well.

This is one from another day:

And the binding on a third quilt:

Rainy days of February

This is a client quilt I've started working on today. Should be done by the weekend!

No need to be hoppin' mad

My new hopper foot didn't fit... :( or so I thought...
I bought a slew of new rulers and was sooo pumped to start using them when my ruler hopper foot arrived. So.... I posted this photo on the chat group for Tin Lizzie owners and someone told me you can rotate the needle bar.

VOILE! I'm back in business! Such an easy fix. If you found my page by googling the same problem, here's the solution.

And here's the link to a great chat group for long armers!

Think Nemo was bad?

Now that the blizzard has blown itself out, the streets are becoming clear, the 10 foot piles of snow on the sidewalk have melted to a mere 8 feet, I'd like to share this with you:

A video posted online yesterday shows thousands of spiders "raining down" in the southern Brazilian town of Santo Antônio da Platina.  Apparently, in Brazil, this phenomenon is normal.  Personally, I would not use the word 'normal' to describe a spider downpour.  Earthquakes are also normal but I've never seen anyone in the history of the world use the word normal to describe an earthquake.  Can you see this as a headline?... "A normal earthquake hit Japan today, killing 5,000."    I don't think so.

I will never, ever, ever complain about snow again for the rest of my life.  At least not until the next blizzard hits.


I've been working on a new American Hero quilt today.  This is my first try with rulers.  When I loaded this one on the frame, it called out for ruler work, don't you agree?

And now, back to the long arm!

I've had a few questions about quilting with a long arm.  So I thought I'd load some photos.  I think visuals might help the confusion among the non-quilters reading my blog.   

Long arm quilting is simply stitching the backing, batting and quilt top together, forming a quilt sandwich.  The first task is loading the backing fabric onto 12 foot long rollers.  The fabric in the photo above is a beautifully dyed batik from the island of Bali.  After the backing fabric is loaded and rolled taut, the batting is placed on top, you can see cotton batting lying on the fabric in the photo.

I have 2 choices as I proceed loading the batting and quilt top.  There are more 12 foot rollers, one set for each layer of a quilt.  I can load the batting and top on those if I want to.  The other choice is the one I always use, it's called floating.  I simply float the batting and quilt top on top of the backing fabric.  To start the long arming, I stitch along the top and sides to anchor the 3 layers together, and then the fun begins!

How to lube your thread

I've been long-arming happily all day.  I finished one quilt, and will place another one on the frame tomorrow. I wish the holiday could be extended, I'm not ready for school to start!  For those who are new to the blog, I home school my son.  I'm also taxi-driver for my oldest in college (she has a disability and can't drive for now).

I thought I'd share a tip to help those who are tempted to oil your thread when you sew velcro or use metallic threads.  My method works for long arming, sewing, serging, upholstery  just about any type of sewing.  I've used this method for years and it works!

If you have continual thread breaks while sewing velcro or use metallic threads, try this!  Cut a tiny piece of stick-on velcro, use the fluffy side.  Place it under the thread path AFTER the tension disc.  Then place 1 or 2 drops of silicone (Sewer's Aid, etc.) on the velcro.   As the thread glides across the velcro it lubes your thread without ruining the entire cone, and without gumming up your tension dial.

Use velcro to sew velcro, brilliant! Let me know if you try my method?  I'd love to hear how it worked for you!

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American Hero Quilts

I've finished the Hero quilts, and they'll be shipped back to American Hero Quilts on Tuesday.  Check out the website for American Hero Quilts, they are doing an awesome job supporting our wounded soldiers.

This is the quilt I finished longarming this weekend:

teaching children to quilt

I've been so busy learning my long arm machine I'm afraid I let the blog go by the wayside. My apologies! But in my time offline, I've learned that long arming isn't really all that hard. Pantograms and a laser light make it a breeze to create beautiful designs on the quilt.

The quilt in this photo was made by a 12 yo beginner. Her goal was to match her corners, and she did a pretty good job! There are tucks and puckers everywhere, making for thick seams at times. You can see the pattern I'm using has plenty of swirls, I chose this one because the swirls will help disquise the puffiness caused by the tucks.  It's a pantograph by Lisa Calle.

Tin Lizzie

Tin Lizzie Ansley 26" on a 12' Hailey quilt frame.  It's nearly ready to start quilting.  I'm missing one cable, need to get it ordered.  Then I'll load some fabric to practice.  As you can see, the door/window trim needs to be installed, and the floor but those will come in August.  I couldn't wait that long to get started, could I???


I found 2 old letter sorting/office cabinets at the Habitat for Humanity Restore.  With email today, who uses these anymore?  I placed 2 on end, with 1 on top of the other and it's perfect for storing fat quarters.  I'm not done filling it...
Walk through this door and you find my sewing room.  



(click the photos to enlarge)

To the left of this window, the wall is large enough for a king size design wall.  As soon as Fons and Porter's design wall go on sale I'll put one up.

My quilting room is coming along!

I'm remodeling a room next to my sewing room so I can set up a long arm quilting machine.  Insulation is going in the walls for sound proofing.  I've been told it'll only take a week for the last month so hopefully it will be finished before the year's out?  rotflol

The view on March 20th

The view on April 20th

This is the view if you're standing in front of the door seen in the photo above.  My sewing room is through the open door.  I'm using the 'formal living room' as my sewing room.

What this means is, everyone who comes over sees a MESS upon entering my home.  Compared to that, the rest of the house looks fabulous!

Long arm quilting machine and frame

I bought a long arm quilting machine and frame from a dealer in Portsmouth, VA yesterday, and I did some pretty significant drooling over the many vintage machines she had. Wow, she had a beautiful New Home treadle with a coffin top on a fabulous table. It wasn't for sale, but it was wonderful seeing one is such fine condition.

I spotted a beautiful 201 for sale! The Singer 201 is in wonderful condition. It's not in a table but the wiring was sound, and the paint looked great.  Look at the throat space!  The 201 is supposed to be the quietest machine available.  The Singer 201 is considered by most collectors to be the best machine Singer ever made. It is gear driven and has an internal motor, which makes it very strong. It is also extremely quiet when sewing.


Once I get my long arm set up I'll be posting about that. We have to finish the ceiling and walls with drywall before I can set it up. Hopefully that will be finished this week.

My quilting studio

Not really, but I woulda if I had
a tree like this one!