This month I interviewed three Longarm League members to discuss the challenges and rewards of starting a new business together - The Panto Shop! I loved getting to talk with them about their journey from individual League members, to being in a Business Buddy group, to now creating and starting their new business. While the full discussion replay is available for League members, we invited them to share a little about themselves and their businesses with all of you.

My guests were Shelly Moore (Ma Tante Quilts), Katie Hanson (Modern Textiles), and Kaitlyn Howell (Knot and Thread Design). While they each run their own longarm quilting businesses, they joined together to create and found The Panto Shop - a new website for purchasing digital pantographs. They specialize in offering fresh and modern pantographs on a clean and easy to navigate website.

After knowing these ladies for years and watching their individual businesses grow, it's...

Each month in the Longarm League, we hold a coaching call with one of our members to talk about their business. This month I sat down with Jennifer Smith of Jenn B Quilts. We talked about meeting and quilting for popular designers, finding new ways to manage a busy household after starting a business, and ideas for continuing to attract new clients.

While League members have full access to the recording of the call, we asked Jenn to share a little more about herself and her business with our blog readers.

Without further ado, let's meet Jenn...

Jennifer Smith, Jenn B Quilts

Located: University Place, WA
In business: 2 years
Machine and software: Gammill with Intelliquilter
In the Longarm League: 2 years

Where to find Jennifer
Website: https://www.jennbquilts.com/
Instagram: @jennbquilts
Facebook: jennbquilts
Best way for someone to contact you for quilting? Through my website. You can request quilting using my form, or if you need to reach...

Simple Cable was created as a simplified version of Sweater Weather. I used this simplified version in the Cable Knit extended-width design, but since I know that not every computerized quilter's software allows block designs, I wanted to provide a new option for those who can only use repeated pantograph designs like this one.



Another difference between Sweater Weather and this design is the width of the pattern repeat. Sweater Weather has a wider repeat; the default width is 6.25". I designed Simple Cable to have a shorter width at 5", but it can always be resized. 


If you offer custom quilting, you could put a row of this cable in a sashing or border.

The Quilting Particulars

You have a few options with this design. 1) You can set it up without an offset or with an offset. In the sample shown, I did not use an offset. 2) You can load a quilt top sideways so the cables run vertically when the quilting is complete.

I...

This is my latest quilt, sewn *in season* and just for fall. When the top was completed, I knew I wanted to carry the fall theme into the quilting, but I was wracking my brain to think of a fall-themed design that felt like me.



I'll never say never, but in the past, I haven't been "into" pumpkins, fall leaves, or Halloween ghosts, goblins, or spiderwebs. But knitting? Oooooh! Knitting is another story. The fall season gets me in the mooooooood for knitting! 

I taught myself to knit by watching YouTube about fourteen years ago, shortly after giving up my sewing room so we could have a nursery again for our youngest child. I needed a creative and tactile outlet, especially since I couldn't access my sewing machine, and knitting fit the bill. It didn't take up much space, and I loved the challenge of learning a new technique.


For a long while, I would knit one sweater for myself annually, but I haven't done that in probably...

Each month in the Longarm League, we hold a coaching call with one of our members to talk about their business. This month I sat down with Erynn Truex of True Threads Quilting. We talked about balancing a full-time corporate job and having young kids while building a longarm quilting business and carving out time to plan and work on bigger future goals for the business.

While League members have full access to the recording of the call, we asked Erynn to share a little more about herself and her business with our blog readers.

Without further ado, let's meet Erynn...

Erynn Truex, True Threads Quilting

Located: Phoenix, AZ
In business: 8 months
Machine and software: Innova M28 with Autopilot
In the Longarm League: About 1 year. I was a rookie in the class last September.

Where to find Erynn
Website: https://www.truethreadsquilting.com
Instagram: @true.threads.quilting
Best way for someone to contact you for quilting? Intake form...

Each month we provide our League members with a new lesson aimed at helping them in their business. This month I sat down with three of our members to talk about the logistics involved in running a longarm quilting business during the busy winter holidays, communicating with clients, and planning for time off. I had a great time chatting with Lilo Whitener-Fey of Trace Creek Quilting, Nancy Calhoun of Fancy Schmancy Nancy Longarm Quilting, and Tia Curtis of Tia Curtis Quilts, and while the recorded conversation is only available to our League members, we thought it would be fun to share a list of some of their favorite winter holiday pantograph designs with everyone here on our blog.

Below are nine of Lilo, Nancy, and Tia's favorite pantos to use on winter holiday quilts, listed in alphabetical order. Special thanks to League members Ashley Perkins of Hen House Quilting, Melonie...

What started as a baseball diamond shape morphed into something that looked reminiscent of a graphic for America's National Parks. From there, I repeated the shapes at odd angles so that some secondary and tertiary diamonds emerged, but the "explore" feeling from an imagined poster never left.



What I like about this design is the graphic boldness of straight lines, angles, curves, and circles all playing together.

I found it funny that because I used such low volume AND extremely low contrast fabrics in this quilt, the quilting design pretty much swallowed up the whole quilt pattern! I was shocked by how little I could see the quilt pattern after quilting. Oops!

The Quilt

Believe it or not, this quilt is the Star Pop II quilt by Emily Dennis of Quilty Love. Here it is on my design wall before quilting as proof there were stars involved. Ha!

And then, after quilting:



To be sure, I knew that the patchwork would be subtle. It was...

Each month in the Longarm League, we hold a coaching call with one of our members to talk about their business. This month I sat down with Ursula Almeida of UrsaMakes. We talked about strategies for continuing to build her client base, the value of consistency in attending guild meetings, building relationships with local shops, using Gretchen Rubin's Four Tendencies to guide goal-setting, and a big future goal.

While League members have full access to the recording of the call, we asked Ursula to share a little more about herself and her business with our blog readers.

Without further ado, let's meet Ursula...

Ursula Almeida, UrsaMakes

Located: Santa Barbara, CA area
In business: 8 months
Machine and software: Babylock Coronet, handguided without software
In the Longarm League: 11 months

Where to find Ursula
Website: https://www.ursamakes.com/
Instagram: @ursamakes
Best way for someone to contact you for quilting?...

Ledger is a tricky design to execute and not for those who stress about perfection. How is this for a sales pitch?! But also? OMG, I'm in love with the modern-looking result! 

I like to be upfront about the degree of difficulty of a design because I'd hate for a beginner to get frustrated.



Ledger has a look you might only expect to see from careful walking-foot quilting on a domestic machine. But luckily—no basting, quilt wrangling, or taking it off the frame and re-mounting it halfway—is involved with this method.

I was feeling very ho-hum about this quilt top when I finished it at a retreat earlier this year, but after I quilted it, my excitement meter went up.

WAY UP!   



I decided to experiment with grid quilting as an edge-to-edge design, building the grid "brick-by-brick". You can watch the video of the stitch-out at the top of the blog post to see what that looks like. 

I wanted to keep the...

Hello friends! I'm showcasing a bundle for you today. Instead of narrowing a variety of clamshell designs down to one, I've bundled them together so that you can have many options!

There are FOUR edge-to-edge designs included in the Clamour bundle:
Cat
Line
Dash
Bump


All of this started because the Des Moines flag inspired me. I live in the Des Moines metro area, and the flag below represents bridges in the city. I created a few simple clamshell shapes designed to have some spacing between the clamshells, one with a line traveling under the clamshells (or on top if you'd like to flip it vertically like bunting) and one with a short line between. In the bundle, these are represented by Line and Dash.

From there, I stumbled upon a variation that looked like cute cat heads in a simple and easy stitch path, so I knew I needed to include it too. We have a cat-friendly (cat-laden?) household, if you haven't met me yet.

Let's talk...