T-Shirt Quilts, Teacup Spinning, and Team Work

Do you ever feel like you are cramming a week’s worth of living into one weekend. It is the end of the week, but everything starts spinning in fast forward motion.

I feel like I am on the teacup ride at Disney World with my husband and a family friend crammed into this little tea cup and they are spinning it so fast I cannot see anything outside the cup. You focus on the inside, and the only thing you can clearly see. The door is locked and you are stuck spinning away. That is my weekend, but I completely love it.

I am truly living every second of every weekend. I’m not sleeping it away or waiting for time to pass. I’m living in the moment, and enjoying it wholeheartedly. However, I’m a little tired. Many weeks and weekends with little sleep are causing my batteries to run low. Tonight, I am going to sleep early and I have announced this to my family. Hopefully these storms don’t get too nasty….

This weekend was our second sewing class- a full t-shirt class. This has been our most requested class, and it turned out to be such an exciting and all-around great class. Several people even finished their quilts!

We are almost certain two machines had smoke flying out of them as their owners earned several speeding tickets throughout the weekend, but we let them fly and loved their finished products.

My goal with every class is that each participant makes the quilt they truly want, not what is required. We have few requirements in our classes. There are so many different ways to sew, and we understand that. Things work for one person that do not work for someone else. We recognize this. My mom sews one way, and I sew a different way. Laugh if you will, but I was taught to cut by a left-hander (mom), so that is just a hilarious process unto itself. 

 There is no right or wrong- putting a needle through fabric is sewing. We will teach what we know and tricks and tips we have learned along the way. Most importantly, we will all have fun.

 
After a brief chat, everyone got to work. Baseball shirts, anniversary shirts, soccer, football, OSU, tie-dye, and fraternity—we saw so many different shirts and each quilt is incredible and different. 

As class progressed, I was even able to play on Millie a bit. I stayed late and came early to prepare quilts so it wouldn’t disrupt class. 

Two cute, matching KU quilts were finished, and we even took in a K-State quilt. We do not choose teams when it comes to quilting. 🙂 

A small table runner or wall-hanging also made its way across the machine. This one was incredibly pieced and I loved getting to add the quilting.

Our most popular thread this month has been Sand, and we quilted with it again this weekend. A fabulously, fun quilt with a flower pattern was screaming for gold thread. Sand has a way of looking like the perfect gold for quilting, and that is just what it looked like on this one. 

Two of the quilts this weekend used a fun color thread on a solid backing, which allowed the quilting to really pop. It creates a truly reversible quilt. 

I have yet another unfinished project since I couldn’t fully finish my OSU T-shirt quilt, but this is the first full week of the month, and that means it is WIP Week! I have two quilts that I will be working on and hopefully you will get to see finished pictures soon…
One last project that happened this weekend–my batting wall. Friday night I walked my amazing husband into the quilt intake room and pointed at the massive pile of batting and said I wanted something to fix it. Then I left the room. The result was this awesome wall that works perfectly! 

Our next class will be a Log Cabin quilt using the Creative Grids trim tool. I love the traditional log cabin block, so I cannot wait for this!

See you at the machine,

•Care

Traveling through Hyperspace… Or Just a Weekend

Weekends used to mean a time to relax, clean house, catch up on laundry, and go grocery shopping.  Now, they mean sewing and being surrounded by fabric! I’m fine with this tradeoff, but my house might be included in the next State of Emergency Alert.  Long days doing what I love, and an extremely understanding husband, make the tradeoff bearable.

This weekend was busy… and fabulous… and so much fun.  Friday I worked with Millie and caught up on random shop things including placing more inventory around the shop and ordering even more fun stuff.  Saturday we had our first class.  The Disappearing Nine Patch Class was a blast.  Although the pattern was the same, each quilt was vastly different.  I cannot wait to see the finished quilts.  Everyone made great progress during class, so ladies, don’t let that get buried in your unfinished project pile. I’m mainly talking to myself since I have had a partially finished D9P floating around in my car/backpack/sewing room for quite a while now.

Two of the quilts we finished this weekend were customer quilts.  One was a fun Bruin T-shirt quilt and the other was a GORGEOUS star quilt.  The t-shirt quilt was quilted using a pattern similar to the border print.

The Star quilt was quilted with a simple Damask pattern.  Can we have an honest moment for three seconds? This quilt made me nervous.  First, it is GORGEOUS.  I cannot believe the time spent on this quilt.  Secondly, the story behind it is one to break hearts and show love.  Every stitch was sewn with love, and I felt compelled to carry that through the quilting.  Lastly, it is just so breathtaking.  I was not the one to take this quilt in, so I had not seen it before I started loading it onto Millie.  Breathtaking.  Simply amazing.  I believe I asked my mom if they were sure they wanted me to touch it.  A few deep breaths later Millie started to hum.

The quilting pattern was perfect as it did not take away from the quilt piecing.  Thank goodness.  I would not have been able to handle it if the quilting changed this quilt in the smallest way.

Shout out to tall husbands and brothers.  Also chairs and friends.  Taking some of these pictures can be difficult but they put up with my “just a few more pictures” every single time.

The last quilt from the weekend (which is still on Millie) was a quilt my brother-in-law, Devin, has sewn.  He pixilated two Star Wars graphics and pieced them together using 3 1/2 inch squares.  I think there is a rule that you try to do anything a brother asks (I only have brothers), so we were jumping into the deep end and learning new things, left and right this weekend.

First, we wanted to keep the squares lined up.  The front and back were the same size and used the same 3 1/2 squares, so in theory they were to line up.  To handle this and knowing that the back sometimes shrinks up more while quilting on a Longarm we pinned the squares together all throughout the quilt.  I also attached leaders onto the backing so I would have enough space to attach the quilt to Millie.  On the last row of pinning, we found that there was an extra row on the top piece. Something was wrong.  The unpinning began and we finally found the problem in the middle.  We repined and were ready to start quilting.

Devin found two images he liked and wanted quilted throughout his quilt.  One was a TIE Fighter and the other was a X Wing.  At first, we tried pulling the images into Quilt Path, the program I use on Millie, but the program could not understand what line to draw next.  She was moving all over the place and creating around 45 “jumps” in one small square (Jumps are when the machine moves but does not sew, so you are left with long threads to trim).  I finally decided to draw each image line-by-line, so I could control what she would sew next.  I figured out how to upload a background image to “trace”, but it still took quite a bit of time, and it was a huge learning curve.  I was besties with that undo button.

I also reset the line and dot design he had found so it would fit in the different spaces.  We made different sized blocks so all of the lines and circles would stay the same size and not get stretched or scrunched when we set each block.  I set Quilt Path up to have four point marking in place.   Every block could be placed within the set boundary and not start to sew outside of the grid.  Although some blocks are off slightly, most are extremely close.

After all the blocks were designed and ready, I showed Devin how to place each block using the four point set up, pull the bobbin up, and get Millie to sew each blocks.  While he worked on this, I was able to work on a handful of other things around the shop.

Out of nowhere, we heard an awful noise and everyone started running to Millie as I kept saying “Press stop! Press stop!” Devin caught it, pressed stop many times, and we were there.  She broke a needle.  I tried looking for the other part of the needle and said a prayer that Millie’s timing was not messed up.  After looking underneath Millie, I quickly noticed the hook assembly looked out of place and way wrong.  To test, I put a new needle in and tried using the fly-wheel to make sure everything was okay.  It was not.  I jumped online and searched for the re-timing video APQS has recorded on YouTube.  A machine’s timing is correct when the needle can enter the bobbin basket as the hook assembly spins around at just the right time.  This creates a stitch.  Needle down, hook assembly spins, needle up, stitch created.  That is the simple way to say it.

When I realized the video was almost an hour long and knowing we still had quite a bit of quilting left to do, I called Brenda (The sweetest distributor from Barnsdall – Red Barn Quilting).  She confirmed my fear and said we really needed to watch the video and follow each step in order and fully.  I thanked her and turned back to the computer.  Here goes nothing…  After the first three steps, back up was called in.  My father-in-law was already at the shop, so he stepped in and I walked away.

I was a ball of nerves as the video continued; file this using an emery board, pull on this, unscrew and remove that.  Each step caused me more fear, and I was not helpful.  I quickly exited the room and worked elsewhere while they went at it.  On occasion they asked for my help, then I would quickly leave again. It was best this way.

Eventually she was back to sewing happily, which meant that I was back to being happy.  We began sewing again, this time moving on from the line design and starting on the X Wing blocks.  On the first block we all gathered around and were mesmerized by Millie (it happens quite often).

Devin continued placing the blocks and working away.  All that is left now are the vertical borders which I will finish up this week.  I need to work more in the design software to set those up.  This takes quite a bit of time and we were all exhausted last night.  Soon it will be finished.

All in all it was a busy but fabulous weekend. We accomplished quite a lot, chatted with friends, and finished quilts.  Learning new things is a key component of this journey and I am always pleased when things turn out well even if we have to take the long route to the finish line.

A new week awaits and another class, the t-shirt quilt class, is happening next weekend.

See you at the machine,

•Care

The Little Engine That Could

19 days! There are only NINETEEN days until our grand opening.  Between picking up fabric, ordering notions, planning greatness, and so much more, I have barely had any time to sit at my machine and have a sew date.  “Soon” I keep telling myself… soon.  

 

Soon the shop opens. Soon I will be able to sit and sew with many fabulous quilters.  Soon Quilter’s Hideaway will be an actual, real life shop and all of the hard work will have been worth it.  Soon seems all too soon.

I have tried to enjoy each moment.  Looking back it has all happened at warp speed, but each moment seemed to take years.  File this then wait, sign this then wait, order here wait for a delivery, the doing and the waiting have gone hand in hand.  

There was a period of time when everyone kept asking how things were going.  I knew it was the calm before the storm, so I wasn’t quite sure how to articulate my response.  Normally “things are going well, we just keep chugging” was my answer.  It is even truer today.  We just keep chugging.  Something comes up, we find a solution, and chug along.  Inventory seems like this daunting, never-ending pile but we just keep chugging.  We are exhausted but beyond exciting.  We chug along, pause for lunch, chug some more and then collapse in bed at night.  The Quilter’s Hideaway helpers are like The Little Engines That Could. 

The ginormous pile of inventory might seem daunting right now, but it means that there are so many options for you. We kept hearing, “make sure you get things that are out of your normal taste”, or “don’t only shop for you [when picking stock].”  We took this to heart and found ourselves picking our extreme opposites.  My mom who doesn’t care for flowers and loves earthy tones kept picking up flowers, while I kept picking up earthy tones and historic type fabric even though I like bright colors.  We would laugh each time we saw one another putting another bolt into a cart that wasn’t anything like what we would normally pick.  We did manage to get past this after quite the giggle.  Having other sets of eyes shop with us also meant that many different tastes were able to help us pick fabric and choose a wide variety.  I just can’t wait. 

Boxes are being delivered every day. We had two trips-one to Arkansas and one to Tennessee, and then my mom and mother-in-law had a little road trip to Dallas.  I had to work and was beyond jealous, but they did a great job picking things and even remembered to send me several pictures so I could share with you.

They were gob smacked when they entered Moda.  It was set up a little differently than the other two warehouses that we had visited and, of course, it was much larger than the others.  Had I gone, I don’t think we would have stayed on budget, but they did a fantastic job! I was impressed with what they collected and they even left a little room in the budget for me to “play” online. I’m expecting a few more boxes this week. 🙂

This weekend flew past but we were able to cross items off our to-do list. We might have added a few more, too. Let’s not focus n that.

We now have quilts hanging on the wall, fabric in shelves, and ironing stations finished. The boys even made a notions station that I love! Thank goodness for an amazing husband and father-in-law who turn my jumbled thoughts into actual things and make them so much better than I first imagined. They are the best!

I even quilted a couple quilts this weekend.  The first was one of the craigslist quilt tops I found a few weeks ago.  They were in rough shape, but I wanted to practice a couple new patterns so it was perfect.  This pattern is called “Raindrops on the Pond” and it is possibly my favorite so far.

The other quilt was for a customer.  The fabric had flowers on it and she chose “Spring Flowers” as the pantograph pattern. I LOVE how it turned out.  The pattern matches the fabric so well and the combination was fabulous

Tomorrow starts another week with more fabulous things to come.

See you at the machine,

•Care

Sewing Saturday

Saturday was all about getting things done with the help of Millie.

I had several projects that needed finished up and Sunday will be a busy day (Its my husband’s birthday!) so that left Saturday.

I started with a beautiful, scrappy quilt made by a sweet lady.

 

Up next was a table runner I made this week. I used double batting and I could not be happier with the outcome. It took forever to finish due to the dense and detailed pattern but the snowflakes were the perfect addition. The cream fabric has a very light snowflake pattern on it that worked well together with the quilting. All it needs is a tiny red binding then to be rolled up and packaged.

 

Next up is a baby quilt I made earlier this year. I used the magic ruler and showed how to make each block on previous posts. I finally had the chance to quilt it. I wasn’t sure how to quilt it at first, but we had played with this ribbon quilting previously and I really liked it. The decision was made and now it is all quilted.  Another quilt ready for binding.

 

 

While Millie was handling her business and quilting away I sat next to her and worked on more planes. Three more finished, three left to go. Hopefully they will fly away this week and I can get that quilt wrapped up soon.

By the time I finished the baby quilt it was late and I needed to pack up and head out. A pretty successful Saturday in my sewing world.

 

We are nearing towards Christmas and this is the first full week of December. You know what that means? It’s WIP WEEK! Find a project that needs worked on or finished and let’s get them completed together.

 

 

 

Share what you are working on and feel free to tag us in pictures. It’s the last push to get things finished up in time for Christmas. Let’s do this!

 

See you at the machine,

•Care

Weeks are Packed Around Here

Hello! Hello!

Let’s be honest with each other for just a moment.  I never expected the last post to be read by so many people.

We had hopes and wishes and dreams, but you all rock!  

With that said, I have been at a loss for what I should post next.  Nothing is quite like announcing the opening of a quilt shop.  Everything else I could say will pale in comparison, but I love writing and sharing what we have going on, so I will do just that.  

 

Today might be a bit of a ramble and somewhat on the jumpy side, but you deserve to know.  Plus, I just cannot contain my excitement.  Here we go!

Last weekend my mom and I walked through the building for the first time with the intention of opening the quilt shop.  Walking in and picturing where the fabric will go, where Millie will call home, the classroom, the notions, precuts and patterns- it is all there.  With every step we take it is turning more and more into a shop.  My hope is that when people walk through the door they feel at home- they feel that they can create in this space, and enjoy the company of other likeminded people.  A creative, warm, welcoming place with a touch of modern and a splash of randomness (after all, I can be pretty random). 

We are continuing to work on the calendar and schedule.  Our hope is to reveal the calendar at Gift’s Marketplace– a women owned, small business fair on December 6^th at Tri County Technology Center (Bartlesville, OK).  If you want to be the first to get your hands on our calendar, make sure you stop by and say “Hi!”

 

With the calendar in mind, do you have a specific class you want to take? A quilt you want to make? Something you want to see or learn more about? Would you like to know what on earth a sewing machine even is (I’m talking to all of you newbies! You have to start somewhere.).  Let me know in the comments below.

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We have chatted about the building and the calendar, now let’s check in on what Millie has been doing.

A little snippet about something we learned this week: if Millie seems happy but is not sewing vertically, do not spend hours researching and trying everything you can think of.  Instead, check that the encoder is still plugged in.  It appears while I was cleaning and oiling her before sewing this weekend, I managed to unplug the encoder.  I spent hours trying to figure out what had happened and searching online for answers. I finally called in back up.  The dealer we bought Millie from (Brenda at Red Barn Quilting –She’s awesome!!) was able to pinpoint the problem over the phone.  Within seconds Millie was back to sewing like a dream.  If only I had made that phone call earlier on…

There are a few more quilts in line for quilting this week and even a few shopping adventures.  Opening a quilt shop brings an entire new meaning to Black Friday shopping.  I have even tried sweet talking a few of the guys in my life into coming along and bringing a trailer.  It will be quite the undertaking.  Make sure you are following along on Instagram (quiltershideaway & quiltingwithcare) and Facebook (Quilter’s Hideaway) to see what happens.

See you at the machine (or maybe in line on Black Friday),

•Care

Remember, if you want to be the first to see our Calendar, stop by and see us at Gift’s Marketplace on December 6^th!

Also, let me know what classes you are hoping to see on the calendar this spring.

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