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 five years. I miss it! The cardigan I've started wit...

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 on my website, or you can email or DM me

Q&A

Tell us ...

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 Morrow of Quilty Lab Creations, and Shelly Moore of Ma Tante Quilting for providing additional photos for t...

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 intentional. This was a wedding quilt for a...

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? Instagram DM, book a quilt on my website, or email

Q&A

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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 longer lines of the rectangle free from backtracking, but doing it this way m...

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 about the Cat option now, because that's what I ...

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 Amber Foret of SunRae Designs. We talked about her interest in adding additional revenue streams to her business and the value of business coaching in growing your business.

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

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

Amber Foret, SunRae Designs

Located: Katy, TX
In business: 2.5 years
Machine and software: Bernina Q24 with QMatic, Art & Stitch
In the Longarm League: 1.5 years

Where to find Amber
Website: https://www.sunraedesigns.com/
Instagram: @sunraedesignsllc
Best way for someone to contact you for quilting? Through my website or Instagram.

Q&A

Tell us a little about your business and the services you provide at SunRae Designs.
I provide E2E quilting services and batting.

Do you hav...

Earlier this month I sat down with Michelle Pratt of Seashell Quilting Studio to talk about her business. Michelle took the first Rookie Season class we offered back in January of 2021, right around the time she got her new Gammill with Statler Stitcher.

I had some time to chat with Michelle at QuiltCon in February, and it became clear that she had a lot of great updates and information she wanted to share with other Longarm League members.

So, Michelle gathered her numbers and talked with me in depth about her client base and how she's grown over these last few years. She shared what marketing strategies have worked best for her so far, and also gave details about the referral and loyalty programs she's implemented to thank her loyal clients and fans.

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

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

Michelle Pratt, Seashell Qu...

Migrate is a digital pantograph design that came about as I played with the elongated, mirrored "wing" shapes you see here. Only after looking at it for a while did it remind me of a minimalist butterfly shape and that's where the name came from.

But you don't have to like butterflies to use this design on a quilt top! It's abstract enough to work on a lot of different styles. It would even work for a mid-century modern look.

There is some backtracking involved in this design, so if you're curious about that, watch the video of the stitch-out at the top of this blog post.

 

The Quilt

I have to admit, I pieced this quilt top specifically to test a different pantograph design. I loaded it up and quilted three rows of the intended design until I was sure it was a no-go. Sometimes my ideas on the computer don't quite translate well to real-life applications. It's a bummer, but that's life. That means more tweaking is needed until I'm happy with the design or it'll get scra...