A simple Customer Quilt.

Good Morning! I am happy to say that I think I have gotten my Tension Woes fixed. Wow what an pain in the Butt!!! After weeks of fighting with the tension, replacing parts, and then tweaking and tweaking I think we may finally have gotten things working. Enough so that I was able to work on this quilt yesterday for about 2 hours with out problems (well there were some frayed threads, but I can live with that!)

This is a very sweet quilt a customer brought to me last weekend, it is for her Mom who is undergoing chemo.
She ask me if I could add some borders and then when it is all quilted I will bring the backing to the front to form one more border, the backing is this soft fuzzy rosette material. (not minkee but similar)

This is a close up of the panto she picked, it is called Hearts a Flutter. And the thread is a bright pink! I think when it is done this will be one very cute quilt! I will be sure to post finished pictures.

Well, this was really just a short and boring blog today, possibly because I have a whopping headache this morning. I will try to post again later this week!
Thanks for stopping by.
Happy Quilting,
Ginny

Tension Woes...

Well, I just re read my last post.. first off, I need to work on my proof reading before I hit publish!!! YIKES!

I was also ready how optimistic I was when I made the statement " now with my tension issues behind me..." Sadly not the case! After I got done with the quilt in the pictures on my last post I put on a practice piece as I was still getting some loops and tension was still a little off... after three 4 hour sessions fighting with tension and timing, Stuart finally threw up his hands and told me to call Darrin.

Darrin is our sewing machine repair guys at the shop, I called and he spent almost all of mothers day working on my machine. He did get it about half fixed. The loops I was getting were due to the gap between the hook and the eye of needle, he loosened the bobbin assembly and moved it back just a fraction and that fixed that problem! Then he went to work on the tension.

Now let me start by saying that no matter what I did I could not get the tension to balance and stay that way, oh I could get it to balance for a little while then BAM loops on the bottom and flat lined bobbin thread! I ended up with the tension dial cranked almost all the way down as tight as it would go and still the same thing.

So Darrin starts working on it, and gets the same results he disassembled and reassembled and  changed springs, moved the check spring, and many more things... alas, tension is still way off. So here I sit almost a month after getting my machine back from it's "upgrade" and Darrin had my face plate at the shop either rebuilding the tension assembly or ordering me a new one. Needless to say I am less than happy.

The saddest thing about this whole adventure, with my old tension assembly I NEVER had these problems, I am still not sure why they replaced my face plate and tensioner... I did call to ask if they by chance still had my old one.. the short answer was no, and according to Her... the problem is not with the machine but with the thread... well then ALL of my thread must have magically turned to crap while my machine was gone.....

This is the first time I have been less than thrilled with the customer service from the Homesteader people... and right now I am very very sour.
Sorry about all of the negativity. Hopefully my next post will be happy and quilty.

Thanks for letting me vent!
Ginny

OH and if ANY of you have suggestions on how to fix this damn thing, PLEASE feel free to share! :-)

Candy Mountain Quilts Open For Business... And a Prom!

So it has been a few weeks since my last post, and since I don't want to fall off the posting wagon like I did last year I figured I had better take a few minutes and throw something out here LOL!

Really I have good reason to have not posted much, I have been up to my ears in quilts and prom!
After I got my Homesteader set up on the new frame, and everything fine tuned...well almost fine tuned, I worked on a quilt for Wendi's daughter Jessica, some back story... Jessica is 17 and has had a bit of a heart problem since she was born, I won't go into a ton of detail because frankly it isn't my place to share her trials with the world... let me just say that Jessica is one of my favorite teenagers and I have a huge amount of respect for her, she has already had surgery once (maybe twice) on her heart, and has just found out that she will be having surgery again this summer, they have to replace one of the BIG arteries... (Wendi, feel free it fill in the details if you would like)  Any how, as a surprise during one of the medical tests...Wendi made Jessica a really cool Shrek quilt... it is adorable...well to get it done before they left for the appointment I threw it on the frame and did a bit of quilting...

 Not sure if you can tell, but the block in between the corners are made with onion fabric!

 

 Jessica also has a thing for zebra's, hence the zebra backing, I kept trying to convince Wendi that there are zebra's in the Shrek movies... I don't think she believed me!

 

 And then we quilted it in lizards! 

I did fight with my machine during this entire little quilt, I could not for the life of me get the tension to balance. Well, once I got it done (it turned out OK, not as well as I would have liked, but OK) I did put on a test piece and played. What I found.. I absolutely can not use bobbin washer in my machine anymore.. not sure why or what the change is but the tension jumps around so badly that I have had to remove them completely. So with my tension issues behind me and the timing where it needs to be, I was ready to tackle my first customer quilt on the new set up, so here it is...

Candy Mountain Quilts Customer Quilt #1! 

I am now officially (state licensed even) open for Business!!!

 This quilt was brought to me by a nice lady, this is a wedding present so shhh! The couple are both avid out doorsy types so this will be perfect for them. She wanted just a simple large meander...

 And she picked a nice rust colored thread, it blended so well in some places I had a hard time seeing where I had quilted!

 

The quilting shows up very well on the muslin backing, I have to say this is the first time I have ever quilted on a muslin back it actually turned out very nice. She comes to pick it up tomorrow night, I hope she will like it!


And just to show that my life is not entirely centered around quilting all of the time...let me share my other distraction this last week... Torrie has a boyfriend, and he ask her to prom... I have proof! LOL
Please let me indulge my proud Mommyness for just a few moments...

 Lets just say it takes a LOT of equipment to get 4 teenage girls ready for Prom.. Oh and a lot of time too, they all started showing up at my house at 10 a.m... The Boy didn't show up till 5 p.m.!

 Torrie was in charge of makeup, Hannah was in charge of hair.. the other two.. well I'm not entirely sure....

 We did discover two things.. you can fit 4 teenagers into my small hallway.. and it takes 3 girls to get Hannah into her dress... I just don't want to know why!

Julia, Hannah, Garrett aka "The Boy" aka Gavin...Torrie and Rina.

 So, once all the Magic was done, and "The Boy" arrived we took pictures, now for some reason, Torrie was the only one with a date... strange very strange since most boys are afraid of my daughter....
 The good news.. "The Boy" (who's name is really Garrett)  Was very nice and posed with all of the girls... they were having fun!

                                   "The Boy" and Torrie,

I am pretty sure "The Boy" is pretty Ga Ga over her... Smart Boy... :)

 Her dress is so pretty.. I am still amazed that we got it for $20! Of course the dress Julia and Rina are wearing are Torrie's also.. they were $20 each too! That was a great sale.

OK, so this is my absolute favorite picture (Torrie's too) She was sick and tired of getting her picture taken and had started to whine.. I grabbed then and ask for one more shot, she relented and let me.. it was the best one of the day! They had a great time at the dance, and are pretty sweet one each other. This is her first real boyfriend, I think she picked a nice kid, he is in Drama, and is smart, and she met his family... And if he breaks her heart.... well I will break his knee caps!

So that's it for today, Thanks for stopping by!
Happy quilting!
Ginny

Oh Blessed Day!

Today was a 10! I hopped on the computer this morning to check the tracking on my longarm, which according to the tracking for the last week was due to be delivered Thursday the 14. Much to my surprise I was informed that it was on the truck out for delivery... Well I canceled my breakfast plans so I could be home for my baby.. and then I waited, and waited and waited, I paced, I fed the kids lunch, I paced some more, I sat and stared out the window, and I waited some more, the kids came home from school, I fed them snack and we all waited, we all stared out the window, Moms showed up and picked up kids, Dads showed up and picked up kids and then I waited a bit more! Finally at 4:25 p.m. the Fedex man drove past my house!!! YIKES then he backed up and came to the door, I signed for my delivery and we brought her in the house... Opened the box and there she was!

Stuart and I then spent the entire evening working on my "new and improved" set up. We didn't quite get finished, we did get the frame leveled, and the rear handles attached to the machine. Tonight we will be getting the encoder wheels put on and all of the cables run. Then I will get to load a test piece on and see how she runs. Tomorrow if all goes well I will put my red snappers on ( got a good deal on them from a nice lady I met online after a major Snafu with the Quilts on the Corner shop) Once that is done I will be back in business!
I can't wait to be able to quilt from my own home again, don't get me wrong, I love quilting over at the shop, but there is something to be said for finishing up dinner and going out to work on a quilt for a few hours before bed. I just sleep better! Plus I am more active, not sitting on my butt playing on the computer night after night.
I will post pictures after we are all set up and quilting!
I hope you all have a wonderful day.
Ginny

AT LONG LAST!!!

Good Morning!!!
So first off I guess I should explain the post below this one, it is actually a continuation of a conversation on Facebook, so if you jumped here from facebook well then you know what the heck is going one, if not.. Miss Megan needed a baby quilt quick like and I pointed her to the quilt at the top of my blog, wrote up some quick and simple (I hope) directions and then pointed the way here to show her a rough picture of what I drew up... I can't wait to see her finished quilt. It actually made for a fun morning, yes my life is that lame.  I was thrilled to be of a little help to her, she is one of my favorite blog writer, and just in general a great person.

So, here is my bestest news... My longarm is at LONG LAST on it's way back home! According to the tracking number it is it has just left Charlotte NC. and should arrive here on the 14th. Just in time for a double class weekend. I think this was the longest 2 1/2 months of my life. Thankfully I have had the machine at the shop to use when I needed, but still it will be nice to have mine back and be able to quilt when ever I want to!

My other good news for the day, ALL medical results are in.. everything came back OK, no cancer!!! They even are going to have me wait till next year for my next Mammogram. Originally they were thinking I would have to come back and do it all over again in 6 months.

Well, I guess that's all of my good news for the day, I am off to shower as I get to spend the day with my friend Wendi, time to clean up the sewing room before Baby gets here!
Hope you all have a wonderful day,
Happy quilting.
Ginny

A Magic Star for the Bitchy Stitcher!

This is for you Megan! Like I said in my post, this was a quick and dirty layout. I just used what ever color looked close. Your quilt will be MUCH cuter. I do like the idea of using the yellow for the stars and the star material for the sashing!

 

EDIT....

I was able to make a better image in EQ 7 even though it is still not perfect. I was able to get the stars in there after all.

Here is the pattern I wrote up and sent to Megan on facebook. It assumes you have some basic quilting experience.

Magic Star
Cut 36 5” squares for 4 patch blocks
Cut 4 5” squares for Star center
Cut 12 5” x 9.5” rectangles for sashing
Cut 48 2 ¾” squares to form star points
Cut 5” boarder
Now simply sew together your four patch blocks. I use a random layout when using a variety of fabrics, for yours I would stick to just the pile of fats. Once 4 patch block are made set aside.

Now place one star point square on one corner of your sashing rectangle and sew from corner to corner, do this for all four corners of the rectangle, you should end up with each corner of sashing rectangle the same color as your star center. Trim to ¼ inch and press.

Next take 3 of your sashing rectangles and sew them to 2 of your star centers in this order, sashing, center sashing center sashing. Do this twice. This will form both horizontal sashing rows.

Now take your four patches and attach the vertical sashing rectangles. You should end up with three rows of… 4 patch, sashing, 4 patch, sashing, 4 patch.

Now simply join these rows to your horizontal sashings.

Yep clear as mud!

When done add border!

The New Crown Jewel Has Arrived!

Another busy weekend has come and gone, I have had some good news.. the pathology report from my surgery was non cancer! And after two hours of mammograms OUCH btw... I will have to go in again in 6 months to be rechecked. They did find 3 spots on one breast and one on the other.

Now in my usual fashion, I try not to let things get me down and these last two weeks I haven't had time to have a negative thought!  I actually have had a lot of fun these last two weeks, Friday the day of my surgery Bobbie the shop owner sold our rental machine!!! YIKES.. Now this is a good thing because after all that is her job, to sell sewing machines, but the yikes comes from the fact that I have a FULL calendar the entire month of April, I don't have any room for down time due to no machine. Fortunately the lady who bought the machine was gracious enough to allow us to continue using and renting her machine while our new longarm was shipped. I taught her how to use her longarm the Sunday after my surgery, and then we waited... Well I have to say I am very impressed with the Babylock people, the new frame and the Crown Jewel arrived Wednesday and Thursday, less than a week after the old machine sold. So, Friday after I got off work Stuart and I headed to the shop to set up the new CJ, we got there at about 4:30, the ladies who were renting that day finished their quilt and we were able to start set up on the new system. Many hours later we had this....

 

 We got done with initial set up, leveling and leaders at about 10:30 Friday night. I had my first class Saturday morning, things went OK, not great but OK, we had a bit of problem with the tension, as the day progressed I did manage to get it fairly balanced... Then Sunday I had another class..

 And the machine tension went all to hell! Again I tweaked it all day long and finally late Sunday afternoon I got it balanced. I may have to cause pain to anyone who messes with that dial!

So now, after two full days of playing, both on my own test piece and my two ladies classes, I have to say I like this machine. It is primarily the Jewel just a little bit nicer, a couple improved features that make the over all quilting process a bit easier. I did have to put a warning sticker on the handles. The renters will not be allowed to use the precision stitch feature until they take a second class, I for see some real bloody fingers otherwise! I do like that you can change the stitch length right on the handles.
If you are looking for a good solid mid range long arm, I really would suggest you check out the Crown Jewel. Now the real challenge for me begins.. I have to learn how to use the computer guided portion.. Anybody out there familiar with Quilt Motion? If so give me a shout I am rather intimidated by it!
Well, going to keep this short tonight, it has been a heck of a week this last little while, and I need to get some rest!
Thanks for stopping by,
Happy quilting!
Ginny