Millie, the machine, Earned Overtime This Weekend

Happy Monday!

Today feels like Wednesday, or maybe Thursday without the added excitement that tomorrow is Friday.  It just has the drag that we are pushing through another week.  The get up and go of a Monday following a relaxing weekend is nowhere in sight.  I’m tired.  The reason I’m tired is exciting, though.  We open THIS weekend!  I never thought the day would come, but there are only 4 more days until Grand Opening, and we will be ready.

I might be drinking caffeine which I normally avoid and running around with a slightly jumbled brain, but it is beyond worth it.  Dreams are coming true, y’all.  Yes, I just said “y’all” maybe I do need a little sleep…

I digress.  This weekend was a whirlwind of fabric, Millie working away, and things coming together.  We could open tomorrow, but there are still a few things I am hoping to finish up beforehand.  It feels a little like wedding-week or the week of a big performance.  These are the only things I can find comparison to at the moment, but both are very positive and we survived each in their own way, so this will be no exception.

First up, Millie earned overtime this weekend.  It started with a ginormous King-size purple and camo customer quilt.  The pattern was simple but executed well and I can only imagine how long it took to finish the mile-long seams from one edge to another.  We found a quilting pattern called antlers and deer hooves, and I am so happy we found it because there is nothing that could have been more perfect.  Take a look!

Next, we pulled out my most favorite panel that just came in.  I wanted it visible for you to be able to see, and decided to toss it up on Millie and play.  Bruce the Moose came to life with an acorn precisely placed on his nose… snout?… I didn’t plan that, but maybe I should say I did? The acorn adds to the overall playfulness of this quilt.  It is a favorite for sure.

Bruce will hang in our kid room along with a cradle my grandfather made for me.  Our shop is filled with family and love.  Much of the furniture is from my grandmother’s house when she passed away.  The sewing machine my mom learned on which was purchased and owned by my great-grandmother sets in front of a quilt that my mom watched my great-grandmother sew using remnants of tattered clothing.  My mom’s first quilt hangs along with my first quilt-the difference is incredible, but each quilt showcases our tastes in a funny way.  Each quilt hanging in our store holds a story, as every quilt does.

The furniture in our shop, though many of the pieces are from IKEA, includes several family pieces: the cabinet puzzles were kept in at my grandmother’s, crates my husband built for our wedding, my mother-in-law let us borrow furniture, more of grandmother’s furniture, pieces made by my grandfather for me, and so much more are all mixed together.  It was fun creating the feel of our shop and trying to find ways to mix the old and new, much like mixing older fabric from your stash with new for a quilt.

After Bruce the Moose was complete, I worked on another customer’s quilt.  This one used hand-dyed fabric.  I love seeing all the different ways people create quilts and how their personality is showcased through fabric.

This quilt was yellow with pieced triangles and we found an all over triangle pattern to quilt on it.  I love how it turned out.

After Millie had a few seconds of a break, I needed one last thing finished before the weekend was over.  I had great plans of piecing a quilt for the back of our checkout area’s dresser.  We have it turned backwards so the drawers can be used for storage, but it left a slightly ugly back.  Time just kept sneaking away, and I made the decision to take a solid piece of fabric and try quilting it much like a Wholecloth quilt. It is not perfect, actually far from perfect, but it will work.  It also gave me a reason to use purple thread! Where are my purple loving friends??

Once it is cut down to size and binding attached, it will do the job.  I will keep practicing and one day, I will make a Wholecloth quilt. I just love how they look.

I think that about wraps up our weekend.  More boxes are due for arrival on Wednesday, and we will send out our first Newsletter tomorrow or the next day.  If you would like to be included in our newsletter, please send me an email with “newsletter” in the subject (quiltershideaway@gmail.com)

Don’t forget, you can have your own Bruce the Moose if you come to the Grand Opening on SATURDAY!

See you at the machine,

•Care

Squirrel moment: every time I post a blog, I worry about all of my high school and college English teachers reading it.  I’m sorry to all teachers and grammar enthusiasts trudging through my many issues. You are a champ for continuing to read these posts. Thank you!

FOUR MORE DAYS!!

Quilter’s Hideaway Has Furniture!

Hi there everyone! It is raining outside and we are supposed to be decorating our house for Christmas, but instead I am sitting here with a half-assembled tree thinking about how wonderful this past weekend was and writing this blog. I sure hope no one realizes I’m slacking ;).

 

Did you have a fantastic Thanksgiving? We had everyone at our house for a late lunch/early dinner that was yummy. There was more food than we could finish, lots of laughter, and the kitchen was clean by the end of the day. I couldn’t ask for anything more. I love how both of our families (my husband’s and mine) get along so well.  It makes holidays easier and life greater.

After dinner we went out to a few shops to see what the big sales were. We didn’t purchase much at all, but we saw quite a few baskets piled high.

 

 

Friday morning I went to one store and spent over an hour in line. After that, I decided I was finished with Black Fridayshopping, and we headed to IKEA with an empty trailer.

 

We spent about an hour walking through the store seeking out different items and options. Then, we found a spot to sit and regroup. We wrote down what we needed to look for in the self service area.  We realized a few of our items were not in the self service area, and there were a couple things we wanted to look at again.

 

With our list organized and our plan set we marched through the showcase floor once more and found a lady named Rachel to help with our items that were not in the self-service area. She turned out to be an amazing help and organized our entire list for us based on aisles and checked inventory. This is when we realized a few things were out of stock. She walked with us to find other options and once again helped us to get a plan in place. She was fantastic!

 

This time, with our list in hand we scooted down to the first floor-the self service area. If you have never been to IKEA, almost all of their items come in flat packs. When you arrive at the store you walk around the second floor to see different rooms assembled with their furniture. Each item has a tag with an aisle number and bin number. You write down the information and when you finish you head down to the first floor and pull all of the furniture yourself. There are few exceptions where the staff will have items pulled for you to pick up after checking out (Rachel did this for us).

 

 

So with our LONG list, we found the elevator and headed downstairs. My parents laughed when I told them we would each need a cart, but it turns out we needed a total of 5 carts. It was crazy, but so fun and exciting.

 

We stuck to plan until we got to the chair aisle and my dad decided to mix it up. A last minute decision meant we had three different chairs on our cart. We also couldn’t find three of our originally planned chairs but it worked out for the best and we found an even better chair (in my opinion).

 

Loaded down and struggling to push the carts we headed to check out.

 

 

 

**I just got caught!! A certain someone just walked in and realized my tree is still only half assembled.**

 

After checking out, we waited on the last two carts with 11 more boxes then we headed for the elevator.

 

My dad decided we could fit everything into the elevator at once so it became a game and we won! We loaded the trailer and headed home.

 

When we arrived back in Bartlesville my husband and his family met us to help unload and start building. It was pretty late but we couldn’t wait.

 

Saturday morning I finished quilting another quilt just in time to head to the shop and finish assembling all of our IKEA items.

The shop is coming together and we cannot wait. It won’t be long before our doors will be open.

Remember, if you want to be the first with a calendar of classes, come see us at Gifts Marketplace on December 6th at Tri County Technology (Bartlesville, OK).

 

 

See you at the machine (but first I must finish this tree),

 

•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

Supernova Sunset

Any chance you were wondering what I was sewing while sitting outside on the porch in Kentucky?

Well lucky you, read on to find out. 

We were learning how to make a Bargello quilt. A certain little sister said something along the lines of “you can make it in one weekend” and we were sold. Of course, this would require possibly reading the size of the quilt before deciding you could make it in one weekend. As it turns out, the quilt I started is a king size quilt (Actually a king size, not just something that feels ginormous. I promise, it is.). Obviously it was not finished in one weekend. It is far from finished. 

 
When I started pulling my fabric for this quilt I chose to use colors from Oklahoma sunsets and sunrises. I’ve always been enamored by the bright, brilliant colors that appear morning and night so I am mixing them into a quilt. 

 Once I had my fabric, I cut 2.5” strips of each. 

 

After all the strips were cut I lined them up using a drying rack and started piecing together my panel or strata. By midnight on Friday all my panels were ready to press. 

That is until I decided I didn’t like the way I had sewn on my three yellows. Another date with my handy-dandy seam ripper and I was back on track. Pressing happened and then I started the long, tedious process of cutting different widths to follow along the pattern grid. 

Once you have various strips cut, you take the rows at different points and reattach them or use different rows to create the pattern shown on the template. 

 A few strips in, I realized something was off with the bottom half pattern template. I have decided to focus only on the top half and then repeat the top half again since they are mirror image patterns (or should be). These things happen and it is still a wonderful pattern. I cannot wait to see the finished product. 

 

This was when I finally noticed my quilt was in fact going to be a king size quilt (notice the painters tape holding up rows outside of the design board I was using). I had a brief freak out moment and I thought I was going to stop or at least shorten my quilt, but I had made it this far, I might as well keep plowing through. 

When the weekend came to an end, I had all of my top half strips cut apart and resewn. Now, I just need to sew these strips together-that sounds easy enough. 

I am hoping I can finish this quilt soon and that it does not become one of my infinite number of my work in progress projects. 

Wish me luck, or better yet, want to come sew? 

See you at the machine,

•Care

**If you like this quilt, the pattern is called SUPERNOVA and is available in Eileen Wright’s book Twist and Turn Bargello Quilts available here.**

Wishing for Weekends

Last weekend was one for the memory books. 

Thursday after work I raced home, grabbed my bag and sewing machine, then jumped in my mom’s car. Off we were to drive late into the night. The most worrisome part were the two bridges I knew we would be crossing an hour from Paducah (really, a small town around Paducah). I hate these bridges. There are two skinny, skinny lanes, no shoulders, RVs and semis can’t seem to stay on their side, and you are way up high in the air. If you have ever driven over them, you won’t forget it. My mom always tries to tell me to look at the barges and whatever is crossing under the bridge, but she doesn’t seem to understand if I look anywhere we will be swimming. 
 
Anyways, we obviously made it over the bridges- barely.

After midnight sometime we pulled into my sisters’ driveway and we were exhausted.

Friday was a sewing-on-the-porch day. Fabric was cut, machines were set up, and we were ready. Whenever we have sewing-on-the-porch days I feel like we are sitting in a magazine photo or in a movie. Their land is gorgeous with free range chickens, a duck named “Quackers” and a wraparound porch. It is quite possibly my favorite place to sew. That was until the wind decided to show up and blow our fabric all over the yard. Although the chickens loved it and we found it quite funny, I’m sure we all looked a little crazy running around making sure we found all of our pieces. Well, even with the wind it is still my favorite place to sew.

 

Friday my mom and I ended up staying awake sewing until after midnight and we were tired Saturday but ready to take on the day. Saturday was our shopping day and a hotdog roast day with family and neighbors. 

 

Backyard Fabrics is my favorite quilt shop in Kentucky. I always make sure to stop by there and this trip was no exception. Of course, we also made a quick stop at Hancocks of Paducah. After these two stops we were loaded and off to sew. 

 

More sewing happened and we paused for a fun night by the fire, riding a hayride, and making s’mores before it was back inside to sew some more. Another late night happened, but we were well on our way to figuring out this quilt. 
 

Sunday was our last day. We spent the morning working on the layouts of our quilts and packing up the car. 

It was a quick, but fun trip and I cannot wait to have a repeat of it soon. 

  

I have been waiting months for the trip that happened this past weekend. A three day weekend, a 8+ hour drive, a hayride, a day on the porch, time with my sisters, and time behind my machine. Count me in, always!

See you at the machine,

•Care