The Finish – Christmas Countdown Quilt-A-Long with Helen Godden
At the start of December 2022 our friend, Helen Godden, started her annual Christmas Countdown Quilt-a-long. Helen is our Handi Quilter Ambassador who lives in Australia. She’s an accomplished artist and a superb stationary machine quilter. I decided to join in the quilt-a-long and take you all along with me. So today I will share […]
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Christmas Countdown Quilt-a-long with Helen Godden
Have you seen the Christmas Countdown Quilt-a-long for 2022 from our friend, Helen Godden? This is the 7th year that Helen is doing her quilt-a-long. It’s tons of fun and you just might learn a few new quilting techniques along the way. Helen is our Handi Quilter Ambassador who lives in Australia. She’s an accomplished […]
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Protect your Investment
We received lot of questions recently about powering your Handi Quilter longarm machine. It’s a great question to ask! You definitely want to protect your investment in your beloved quilting machine. I posted back in the summer about this topic and you can read the entire post here. It explains how to choose the proper […]
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Tension is Key
I spent several days in Houston at the International Quilt Festival. I had a wonderful time chatting with old friends, new friends, Handi Quilter owners, and those thinking about joining the Handi Quilter family of owners. During my flight home I thought about all the wonderful conversations I had during the week and something stood […]
Read MoreQuilting Intricate Quilts
Last week I shared a bunch of photos of intricate quilts seen at the AQS Quiltweek in Des Moines, IA. If you missed it, you can see it here. As an educator, the question I get the most is: How do you decide how to quilt something? Checking out the fabulous quilting on these intricate […]
Read MoreTension Headache
I’ve got a cure for your tension headache. Tension is the first thing you need to learn when starting out with longarm quilting. It’s not hard to learn. Many quilters have a bit of a mental block about it. We have been told repeatedly to not touch the tension on our domestic machine’s bobbin. Fear […]
Read MorePerfection
With this series of posts about free-motion quilting for beginners, I have been emphasizing the importance of practice. I encourage all my students to quilt every day. I think of practice not as attempting to achieve perfection, but of attempting to improve. It is a way of generating new ideas and trying new techniques. Sometimes […]
Read MoreWhat is Timing Anyway?
If you have had a longarm machine for any amount of time you have probably heard the word “timing”. And you probably didn’t hear it in a good way. The timing on any sewing machine has to be just right in order to create good stitches. When your timing goes out, you usually cannot sew […]
Read MoreTaking off on a Diagonal Tangent
Last week we used a diagonal path for filling a grid. Let’s take off on a tangent and try a few new things with using diagonal quilting combined with grids. I like to try to find a way to quilt a design that makes it easy to stitch AND gives me great looking results. Win-win! […]
Read MoreFun with Loops and Grids
We filled half-square triangles with loops to create some fun texture. Now let’s get a a little crazy and create some more fun with loops. Work on the diagonal It’s time to branch out and try a little something different. Rather than travel horizontally or even vertically, we can choose a diagonal stitch path. We’ll […]
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