Quilter’s Hideaway

First, I want to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has made this possible.  It has been a dream I never knew I could dream, and watching things fall perfectly into place has been a blessing.

Now for the fun stuff.

The past few blog posts have been sprinkled with different clues.  Did anyone pick up on them? Does anyone want to make a quick guess?

If you found this through the new Facebook or Instagram page then you already know.  My mom and I are opening a quilt shop.

Do you need me to repeat that? I have been hearing it for many months, and I still feel like I need pinched.  A quick poke of the needle as I work on binding for shop quilts has helped with the pinching part.

We are opening a quilt shop!

When I started this blog I made the decision to be open and honest with the world behind the screen.  I wanted people to be able to relate, to see the good, to see the not so good, and to really join in on this journey.   With that said, I plan to share about the shop in this manner as well.

Read on to learn how Quilter’s Hideaway became Quilter’s Hideaway.

Growing up my mom and I would talk back and forth about how great it would be to own a quilt shop- a fun place for quilters, crafters, newbies, and experienced to join together to make somethings from nothing.  It was always a dream but never a reality or something we thought would become anything.

Many years have passed and we took notes every time we visited a quilt shop- we love this, not so sure about that, oh my gosh this is fabulous, and maybe we wouldn’t do that.  Everyone has different styles and watching those styles form quilt shops is part of why visiting other shops is so fun.

One day this summer my mom and I became more serious about diving into this adventure.  She had retired and took a small business class to see what would be possible while I let my imagination run wild.  Could this really be a thing?

I’m the doubter, mom’s the plower.  She is a go getter but wants to have knowledge of every aspect.  She has taken business classes, met with accountants and attorneys, discussed business plans with others, and made phone call after phone call to make sure we are on the right road.  She never second guessed that we could do this.  If one path didn’t work she ran down another.  If one door shut she pounded until the next opened wide.  It has been fun to watch her take hold of this.  I on the other hand, take a closed door and second guess what we are doing.  I make a decision and change my mind three seconds later.  At the beginning this was rough, but now we are in a rhythm of our different roles and I wouldn’t want to be doing this with anyone else!  I’m also getting better at making decisions and sticking with them (you’re welcome, mom).

Now that all of the business side is falling into place we made the decision to announce to you and the world our secret!  Quilter’s Hideaway is real and coming January 2017.  Are you ready? I know we are!

Last night we walked through our building and talked layout (and maybe a little about painting).  It happened right after I created our Facebook page, and I could not contain my excitement.  Things are happening every day to lead us to our grand opening.  From meeting with our web guy (We got the website link we were wanting!), to deciding on shelving, classes, and fabric lines, shop layout, quilts to hang and so much more, each step brings us that much closer to our dream.

So many friends and family members have stepped up to help throughout this planning process, and we wouldn’t be where we are without them. There are no words to cover what others have done for us, but thank you, thank you, thank you!

See you at the machine,

•Care

Standing at the Start Line

Everyone has to have a starting point. This is mine.

 

Not that long ago I wrote a blog post about us opening some very special boxes. Once we assembled our Millie, I spend almost every waking moment wanting to sew with her.

This weekend, I was able to take a two day class on quilt path, Millie’s brain/computer quilting system. There was so much information and I am very tired, but I have 20 pages of notes to hopefully pull me through and remember everything that was said.

It was an incredible class that was both informational and fun. It also left my mind wandering to new quilt ideas and more projects (because we all need more of those, right?). Saturday’s class started at 9am and we dove right in. When class ended around 5pm I just wanted to jump behind the machine and apply many of the skills we had learned in simulation mode during class.

After class I drove straight to my parents house, loaded my first actual quilt, not just pieces of fabric sandwiched together, and got to work. Nerves were high as I leaned in to push the SEW button, but everything functioned fairly well.

There was a bobbin change, a thread break, safe zone areas to set, patterns to resize, repeat, and nest, and so much more.  I think I might need a checklist to remember the common steps for the next few quilts.

Quilt pieced by Nance Allen

My weakest area is either setting the numbers for pattern sizes and thinking through that aspect of the loading process, or the last partial row at the bottom of a quilt. This row was causing a few challenges last night while quilting.

I thought I just had a problem with my pattern or a setting. I wasn’t sure, so after finishing my first quilt I loaded a second– determined to figure out what was happening.

I should clarify that the problem I was having was manually working through the jumps and a system error between the computer and the machine. There may have also been a few errors with the users brain. It happens. It was still sewing fine, occasionally there would be a thread break sensor go off when the thread was fine or it would start tracing a pattern when it was supposed to be sewing.  With each issue I was able to back it up and restart at the stitch the problem started on without changing the end result of the quilt.

With the second quilt loaded, a pattern imported, and settings seemingly happy I dove in. Unfortunately I had the same issues on the second quilt as I had with the first.

Quilt pieced by Nance Allen

Thankfully, when I returned to class today I was able to ask a handful of questions and come up with a game plan on trouble shooting to find an answer. No matter what, she still sews beautifully and I can work around this hiccup manually instead of automatically for now.

I am just so thrilled with how each quilt turned out. I love watching Millie sew and thinking through how to enhance different quilts with different quilting designs and concepts. It opens an entire new element to quilting.

Sew you at the machine,

•Care

Millie Hums

We went on vacation this last week and I completely checked out on technology. It was wonderful, but I am happy to be back!

I missed WIP Week for this month, but I did spend some time working on an unfinished project. I hope you did too! See my last post for more about my WIP Project. It was an English Paper Pieced quilt designed by Mickey Depre (Her patterns are fabulous!).

We flew back home late Friday night and yesterday (Saturday) I spent on a date with Millie. If you remember, we had a few boxes delivered the week before I left town. Those boxes turned into an amazing, APQS longarm machine. I AM IN LOVE! Sorry My Love, you might have a little competition.

Back to Millie- Her full name has turned into Millennium Falcon thanks to one of my awesome Brother-in-Law’s suggestions. For short, we will still call her Millie. The week before we left I was able to get her all assembled, we plugged her in, saw lights turn on, then I had to leave and drive back to my house. This was so tough! It was just before midnight when we saw her lights turn on, so we were not able to actually hear her hum.

The week was crazy and I wasn’t able to get back to her before leaving town. Thankfully, I had a great distraction-Disney World. Though I would be lying if I said I didn’t think about sewing with her every day.

Back to yesterday. Yesterday I finally got to not only turn her on and hear her hum!

At first, I loaded on a couple fat quarters to check tension and play with settings on QuiltPath, the computer program she is able to work with and we have conveniently named “Millie’s Brain”. Here is what we came up with.

After this was finished, I decided to work with a larger area and loaded a little over a yard top and a backing then played more. This time I didn’t have a plan and just wanted to try different things.

I wasn’t looking up tutorials or spending too much time fighting through settings because I am taking a two-day class next weekend. This was just a time to get my hands dirty.

The first row I was hoping to alternate a teddy bear and crosshatching. Everything went well for the teddy bear, then it moved to do the crosshatching, but instead of making a jump, it sewed the transition line. “It is just a test piece,” I reminded myself, though I was already looking for a seam ripper to mend this mistake. On the next jump from crosshatch to teddy bear I thought I could trick it and stop her right after finishing the crosshatch then move it to the start of teddy bear and search for closest stitch. In theory it sounded like a fabulous idea, but in action it just didn’t work. I moved along to a new row.

Another issue I came across was that sometimes after starting a block, setting the safe areas and where the block should sew, Millie would move through the pattern, but wasn’t stitching. I was able to jump in the middle of it and get her to start stitching again, but I couldn’t figure out how to back up and get her to fix what she missed.   I’m hoping to clear this up with a YouTube video or in class next weekend.

I’m very happy with how everything is going so far even with this learning curve. I’m glad I was able to start playing and come across these issues ahead of time.

After coming across a few issues I decided to take a stab at freehand quilting. I turned QuiltPath off and unlatched her from the belts to give me full control. Once ready, my mind went blank and I had no idea what to quilt. I started with a simple “hello!” and I forgot halfway through how to write cursive- brain fart!

Next up I played with writing “Quilter’s Hideaway.” Remember that surprise I hinted at a few posts back? Here is another part of it. I’m going to let you slowly put pieces together as I share hints and clues.

With that, I moved on to some meandering, straight lines, and a box. I also tried pebbles in a smaller box, but my goodness, this will need some work.

I hope you enjoy this journey with Millie. I cannot wait to continue learning and sharing along the way.  I already realize I will need to come up with a better option for getting pictures of the quilting.  Often it was hard to get the stitches to show up.

 

See you at the machine,

•Care

Welcome To The Family!

Well, if you have seen Instagram, we received a few boxes the other day and I asked what you thought they held. 

If you guessed a longarm you are correct!

This feels like a dream come true, but even better than that because I never knew I could have this dream. 

I was one of those crazies that could walk around a quilt show and then spend hours staring at the longarms, trying each one, looking for my favorite. It wasn’t long until I had my favorite- APQS, Millie, to be more specific.

If you have ever wondered the journey of a newbie longarmer, you are in the right place. I will, of course, continue sewing, sharing, and designing quilts, I will just add in this ginormous tidbit.

I thought I should share a little back story for you.

Several months ago I started sewing at a fabulous quilt shop in Barnsdall, OK (Red Barn Quilting) who is an APQS dealer. Brenda is the owner and such a fabulous person. I started renting from her to learn more, still never in my wildest dreams thinking one would come home in the future. I love learning new things and diving head first.

After spending more time around the APQS machines, watching hours upon hours of videos, and reading hundreds of blogs I was convinced and in love. 

My mom is the actual owner, I’m just like the big sister. Monday evening Millie found her way to my parents’ house which is only about 45 minutes from where I live and work. By Tuesday, I was antsy and trying to find any way to get my hands on Miss. Millie. Tuesday after work, my car was pointed north and I was on the way to Millie (Errr I mean my parents).

My mom and I picked up dinner then headed to the house to begin assembling Millie. There were many freak out moments, lots of laughter, and maybe even a few squeals. Once we finished dinner, we gathered the tools listed for assembly. 

A quick trip to the neighbor’s house for something we couldn’t find (or really didn’t want to waste any time looking for) and we were ready to go!

The first thing we opened was THE box. The one where lights shoot out, angels sing, and everyone squeals. That box would be the one. It even has notes around the box warning of such things.

A red bow adorned the machine and I was smitten. Even the bow was perfect, not scrunched or flattened—amazing!

Now with the manual and fabulous step by step instructions and pictures we were armed and dangerous. At one point I did compare the process to assembling IKEA furniture but with MUCH BETTER instructions. There are literally pictures of each step, what to do, what each part looks like, close ups, and so much more. 

Although there were quite a few pieces (it could have been much, much worse), APQS makes it so user friendly and simple to assemble. 

On with the show!

It took us about 4 hours, but if we were trying to, it could probably be assembled a little quicker. We had chatty moments and needed to clean more to make room for Millie.

The finished product was well worth the wait.

Follow along with our journey towards getting to know Millie now that she is a part of the family.

See you at the machine,

•Care