On my longarm today…5 reasons to go quilt shows

October 18, 2016 Lovelli QuiltsLeave a comment

It’s fall here in the Upper Midwest, the trees are all turning magnificent colors and the weather is beginning to cool. It is also quilt show season, before winter driving becomes an issue. Here are my top five reasons to go to quilt shows:

To see amazing quilts, such as this stunning Best of Show, AQS Des Moines 2016 (plus many additional ribbons) quilt by Bethanne Nemesh. It is a whole cloth quilt with an Art Deco inspired peacock design as it’s central motif and beautiful feathers. The quality of the machine quilting was excellent. I particularly noticed that despite the heavy quilting the motifs stood out from the back fill. In addition she used ‘advanced’ edging techniques such as covered beaded piping and tiny scalloped edging.
To discover new gadgets, such as how my Gammill Dealer attaches a tablet to her longarm.
To get inspiration and ideas for my own quilting projects–how to fill up negative space. I liked how Judy Mercer Tescher used block design along with back fills to complete the stars in her quilt Stars and Sparks.
To take classes–I took a class with Judy Woodworth, an amazing quilter, about back fills. I can hardly wait to try some ideas and practice in my studio. I won the class demo with Judy’s stitching. I love those little feather blooms.
To meet old friends and new friends. I always have fun going through a show with friends because they see things I don’t notice. It’s also fun to meet new friends–sit at a table with someone or on a chair next to someone and ask about their quilts.

I hope you enjoy some quilt shows this fall!!

On my longarm today….(a blast from the past)

August 10, 2016 Lovelli QuiltsLeave a comment

I have a quilting bucket list and this log cabin quilt checked off one of the items on that bucket list. Looking back helps gives me (re)inspiration for some of the quilts I’m making today. In this log cabin, made entirely from scraps, I used a central red square, scrappy white/off white shirting, and darker scrappy logs.

I loved quilting this on my longarm because I was able to use different quilting designs in each of the diagonal sections of the triangles. I used a design by Kathy “Beany” Balmart at Quilty Pleasures from her Cascade bundle.

I loved trying it out on my log cabin. Designs like this would work really well on many pieced blocks which have strong diagonal lines across the quilt top. Do you have one in your bucket list?

On the longarm today…Swoon

August 3, 2016August 1, 2016 Lovelli Quilts2 Comments

I feel like I should be putting one hand on my forehead and one on my heart as I sink gracefully onto a fainting couch. But, no, it isn’t that kind of a swoon, the quilt on my longarm today is made using the pattern, Swoon, by Camille Roskelley. It is a wonderful pattern which is well written and easy to make. There are many ways to quilt a Swoon quilt top and for, me, that is one of the challenges–because I want to try them all!! For this quilt, I chose a block pattern from One Song Needle Arts which would lay nicely in the block, emphasizing the different segments of the block, and yet be a cohesive design. I always try to add ways which cause a viewer to look at a quilt and find interest from across the room, from closer, and then from closer still. One way to do that is to lay a quilting design on top of the quilt so that it doesn’t follow the piecing exactly, but it emphasizes it.

As I design a quilt layout, I look for designs which repeat motifs found in the fabric, in the piecing and/or in the applique. For the Swoon quilt I noticed that several fabrics had circles, and that several had flowers. I chose to combine several different flowers by Anita Shackelford for the sashing.

I was very pleased with the way that the quilting turned out.

Now is a great time to get started on Christmas gift piecing. I can guarantee that any quilt sent to me for quilting in August will be quilted before Christmas (custom or edge to edge).

Have a great quilting adventure!!

Welcome New Quilt Blog Hoppers!

July 15, 2014July 23, 2014 Lovelli Quilts28 Comments

Thank you so much, Beth from Plum and June for organizing the hop. I have had so much fun exploring everyone’s blogs and learning their blogging and quilting tips. I love quilting and have been quilting for roughly 26 years, with time off for children and travel. I turned ‘pro’ two years ago when I purchased ‘Sven’, my beautiful teal Statler Stitcher. I love to longarm quilt and will happily quilt all day and into the night for my clients. In addition to longarm quilting, I appraise quilts professionally. I also love to design quilts, and thanks to Quilt design a day (Qdad) I have been turning out 2 quilt designs every day and I have just earned my 60 day badge.

I use EQ7 to design and my first tutorial was about designing with EQ7. Here are some of my designs from the month of June:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

My quilting tip is to learn something new everyday, it can be something small or something large. Each new technique you learn will help you in the future, often in unpredictable ways. Learning about quilt history will expose you to beautiful quilts and give you ideas to incorporate into the quilts you are sewing today. Every mistake I make, teaches me something new or teaches me to pay attention to something I learned before. Learning keeps me interested even when I am doing tedious work. I decided that this year will be the ‘year of the binding’. I am working hard at improving my bindings and you will see tutorials on bindings throughout the year. In between designing and learning I actually find time to make my own quilts. This year my big ‘finish’ was Pie in the sky, by Kim Diehl. I’m still working on my Improv Log Cabin which I started in April during a class by the delightful Jacquie Gering. I started blogging by reading as many blogs as I could. I figured out what I liked and what I liked more. I’m still a work in progress. My blogging tip is to write posts ahead of time and schedule them. I started blogging by just jumping in and writing with the lofty goal of writing two posts per week. Then life intervened (doesn’t it always?, lol.) I’m still working at having blogs prepared in advance. There are always new and upcoming blogs. This year, the New Quilt Blog Hop has four dates, June 4th, June 11th, July 9th and July 16th. On each of those dates there are two groups of bloggers, with each blogger linking to the other group. Have fun, explore, and learn something new by visiting them, here are some of the bloggers participating today:

Sharon @ Fabrics and Flowers

Serena @ Sew Giving

Carmit @ Quilting Rainbows

Jehn @ Jehnny And The Boys

Jenny @ Jack’s Room

Deborah @ Sunshine Through The Rain

Jennifer @ A Quarter Inch From The Edge

Jane @ Where Jane Creates

Carla @ Granny Maud’s Girl

Have a quilty day!

On the longarm today.

May 21, 2014 Lovelli Quilts4 Comments

I am so lucky to be able to quilt on a beautiful client quilt. My client and I decided to quilt using designs inspired by those in the fabric. I combined several medallion designs from Anita Shackelford and from Nancy Haake. The fill function in Creative Studios (the software which runs my longarm) made it easy. Here is my (very rough) design:

I learn something new from every quilt, my lessons today:

size the medallions to the width of the longarm table in order to minimize stops and starts.
rotate the design so that the start of the design is behind the ‘trim’ border, enabling the rest of the design to sew continuously.
break apart designs to minimize stops/starts (it sounds counter-intuitive, but if the longarm quilter is going to stop and start multiple times at the edge of a trim, then breaking the design apart and only sewing the portion which fits entirely on the sewing area will reduce the total number of stops/starts).

Next time I will try:

to plan the outlines of the design and layering the circle borders by themselves first, then stitch them (stabilizing the stitching area). Next digitize the center medallions and stitch them. There were quite a few areas where I attempted to remove stitches which retraced stitching lines but, these were difficult to remove in standalone mode and tedious to stitch.
to make sure that I take the time to manage the sewing order better.

I love to try new techniques and I’m so excited to learn something new with every quilt! What have you learned today?

Have a quilty day!

Meet Statler

February 24, 2014 Lovelli Quilts1 Comment

When I tell people that I am a longarm quilter, I am usually greeted by a blank look and then they look at my arms!lol. A longarm quilter uses an industrial sized machine to sew together the quilt ‘sandwich’ (top, batting, backing). My Statler Stitcher/Gammill machine can be either hand- or computer-guided, as a result I can quilt thousands of designs with craftmanship, artistry, and creativity. I love combining creativity with the precision which computerized quilting can bring to a project. Statler allows me to both quilt a perfect traditional 8 pointed star and a wonky star in a whimsical style.

Have you named your sewing machines? My grandmother used to call her car Betsy, and several of my friends have named their sewing machines–Bernie, Ramon, Bob etc. I thought maybe I should name mine, my first thought was S.(tatler)Teal (because, in a fit of extravagance, I decided on the optional paint job–Statler is teal with sparkles), but then I spelled it out and realized it spelled ‘steal’. I wasn’t sure I wanted to name this beautiful machine something criminal. So in the meantime its name is Statler, not a bad name, but maybe not as exciting/exotic as it could be. My sons thought I should call it Sven. What do you think? I want to make a machine cover for it with its name appliqued on it.

Statler is my first longarm machine. I certainly stepped into the deep end of the pool, monetarily and skill-wise. Most people step up to computerized quilting after they have used a hand-guided machine for a while. I certainly faced a steep learning curve when I got my machine, but my dealer, At the Heart of Quilting, showed me how to use it. They have also been available to help me when I had a couple of minor mechanical issues (all resolved thankfully in a very quick time frame, mostly due to ‘pilot’ error). I’m fairly comfortable with some of the more common problems with longarms thanks to their training and support (I haven’t had to adjust the timing yet, but I know they will help me when my machine needs it).

The biggest problem I had with longarm quilting was my own frustration at not being able to do things perfectly the first time. I know in my head that no one does anything perfectly the first time, including me, but my heart wanted perfection. It was incredibly nerve-wracking to quilt a client’s quilt, because I wanted a happy client so badly, I had a hard time even starting the quilt. Once started, I then spent several all-nighters taking out stitching which didn’t conform to my expectations. It seemed like there was so much ‘stuff’ to remember. I am so thankful for the charity quilts (Mission Stitchers, a quilting group at our church, and Quilts of Valor) and quilts pieced by friends which I quilted during this time because they allowed me to gain confidence and increase my skill level. I’ve also quilted a lot of my own tops, now all waiting on binding, and just recently I picked up some fabric panels which I will quilt to increase my skills. If you are new to longarm quilting I encourage you to try any of these methods to increase your skill and confidence. Now, I am having fun with my quilting and (mostly) achieving the good results which I expect. Have a quilty day!