Clean your machine!

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This is a reminder post to clean your sewing machine.

All too often this gets neglected until there is a problem or obvious build up. I was one of those people who just kept on sewing – never hanging the needle until it broke or I had issue, even if I had multiple needles on hand!

Make a habit to give the bobbin area a quick dust out whenever you change a bobbin. Wipe down the machine itself beforehand and after each use, especially if you don’t cover it.

If a quick clean becomes a regular habit each time you sit down to sew, projects will run smoother and you may find less issues overall.

And change your needle!

Changes coming

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Wow. I mean, I’m not a fan of “sorry I haven’t updated” posts but here I am again.

Anyway, big changes in the background – even more quilting happening. Except this time it’s professionally, not just with our longarm but we now own a fabric shop. I also quit my day job and am running a quilt business full time.

That being said – I’m blogging more on our business site and will eventually move over the best posts from here to the business blog.

Follow me now at Ridge Machine Quilting.

2017 finishes

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Well it was a busy year! I spent all of my free time quilting for others and a little for myself.

I did a quick count through my photos and :

– 5 tshirt quilts for people (I slowed down the second half of the year)
– 3 wall hangings
– 8 quilt tops I quilted for other people (didn’t count the ones Ron did)

And a whopping 23 completed quilt tops for me. Some of these were tops I made in previous years and they sat there waiting to be actually quilted and bound, so their finish counts this year even if all I did was grab the quilt top from the stack and quilt it, then bind it.

This included 6 quilts that were sold, where I made the entire top, quilted it and finished it all myself. Including the tshirt quilts, that’s 11 sold quilts. (plus a tote bag and two pillow shams I forgot to count)

I have at least 5 quilts/wall hangings ready to be bound and finished that weren’t in this number either. If I pushed a little, I could finish some of those today.

So far, I counted the photos of quilts Ron did in my photos and got to 9 completely finished ones, some that I pieced and he quilted. Not too bad for someone who officially started quilting this year.

I’ve been wondering where I crossed 100 quilts and started a spreadsheet to track things. It will take some time to put together, but it showed me ones I missed in my count above and also how many I START and don’t finish.

I’ve got some big changes coming up in the new years and some fun announcements, so this year my main focus for the personal quilting is to be a lot more deliberate and intentional. No more making a quilt just to “use up” the fabric.