No. 500

Posted on October 17, 2014 by prairiemoonquilts in Longarm Quilting

No fanfare. No party hats. No confetti fell from the ceiling.

No horns. No balloons. No cake even.

Just the birds chirping. Jasper bleating in the back yard. And My Cowboy: “I don’t hear that machine runnin’ — git ta work!”

Last week, I quilted the 500th quilt on my longarm, since getting it in May of 2009.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about it, either. I sometimes think I’m slow. I saw one lady post on Facebook that she did 367 quilts in 2013 alone! That’s more than one a day. I can’t do that. Believe me, I’ve tried.

I’m behind most of the time on my own schedule.

I try to keep a 30-day turn-around time, but I can usually only keep it up for about 2 weeks at a time before I get behind again.

But I love it! I love my job!

And I’m so very very grateful for all the customers I have, and that I have so much work coming in. This is a good problem to have, right?

I get asked mostly to do custom quilting. It ranges from easy custom quilting to the heirloom type, and each quilt can take hours upon hours. Sometimes one special quilt will stay on the frame for up to a week! I truly love every minute of it, though.

I’m also a huge worry wart about whether my customers will like what I’ve done to their quilt tops. What if they think I ruined it? What if my vision doesn’t match theirs?

My machine is completely hand-guided, so there are bobbles and mistakes, and I see every one of them, and I worry.

I still learn something on each and every quilt I quilt. And that keeps me going!

If you are one of my customers, I want to thank you and let you know that I truly appreciate your business. Thank you so much for trusting me with your precious quilt tops, and waiting patiently in my queue while I juggle my crazy schedule.

If you’re new here, you can see examples of my quilting HERE and HERE. And of course, if you’d like to become one of my customers, just give me a holler! I’m always up for a little more juggling!

Would you like to see pictures of Quilt #500?

I thought so . . .

It belongs to Pat Sloan, and it’s made from her brand new fabric line coming out with Moda, called “The Sweet Life”, and she has pictures of it HERE. It’s a darling quilt!

And today, I just took #507 off the frame, so there’s been no break from it all. Back to work — I’ll be loading #508 here in just a bit!

 

0 responses to “No. 500”

  1. Rose Marie says:

    Am I the first to celebrate with you. I think I remember the first quilt. Not the actual first quilt but the day the machine arrived and you began working on it. I am SOOOOO GLAD that you love your work. It is a tough job, but someone’s got to do it. And you are perfect for it!!! LOVE and Confetti!!!

  2. Way to go!! Trust me, you are fast with the quilting!! The most time I’ve spent on quilting a single quilt is 250 hours…8 days of 12 hours a day on a friends longarm with a computer (yep I got to learn how to custom quilt with IQ and loved it), and the rest of the time on my own longarm, hand guided with lots of rulers! Yeah, I can see every bobble too!

  3. Lori says:

    Hooray!! And yeehaw!! Throwing confetti from here for you! You absolutely rock, Cowgirl. I’ll be bragging on your latest for me very soon on the blog, but I brag publicly all the time. You are fabulous, period.

  4. Kim says:

    Congratulations!! Such a huge accomplishment! And I am so excited to know one of mine will be gong on that frame soon, too! What wonderful company I am in! Good luck with everything you have going on. And again, congratulations!!

  5. Susan says:

    It isn’t how many that counts, it’s how well. What you do is beautiful, and not to be rushed through at one per day. =) I think 100 per year is still quite a lot!

  6. Judy Smith says:

    Congratulations Shelly! You do such a beautiful job. Too.

  7. Deanna says:

    Someday I will have you quilt one for me…Each of yours I see makes me happy.

  8. katie z. says:

    Wow! I’m impressed by 500 no matter how long it took. I also love that you still make mistakes and see each and every one… I make lots of mistakes in every quilt, so I feel better knowing it’s not the end of the world.

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