Piecing Hints, Tips & Longarming Issues!
It's been about three years since I did my last series in the "Sew, Sew News". That was based on Ruth's Shipshewana School House presentation on "How To Get The Most Out Of Your Longarming Dollar." It resulted in a series of thirty newsletters over a one and a half year period. Those newsletters have been summarized in a booklet titled "How To Get The Most Out Of Your Longarm Dollar" [the file name is "Longarm Prep Book"] and is available in a PDF form. It can also been viewed on our website.
As shown in the above picture, the new series will be based on Ruth's presentation of "Piecing Hints, Tips & Longarming Issues" to the April 2023 meeting of the "String-A-Long Quilt Guild". On that note, I plan on preceding all titles in this series with "SAL#" so that they will be easily identifiable to you. For example, this newsletter is the launching newsletter for the series and is therefore preceded by "SAL0". Likewise, the next will be preceded by "SAL1" as it will actually have some hints and tips..
What Is It All About?
Ruth was taught to quilt by her grandmother. She didn't do anything with that quilting knowledge until our son, Peter, was born. At that time she made her first "modern" quilt. By that, I mean that it was "modern" in that she used rotary cutters and the whole "shebang", except that even that one was knotted. And, while we were In California, Ruth made several other quilts after Peter's.
Subsequently, when Peter was nine, we moved to Bluffton, Ohio. I bought Ruth a Gammill for Christmas from Accomplish Quilting in Michigan. After a few months the longarm turned in to a quilt shop and Forever In Stitches, LLC was born.
Since the founding of Forever In Stitches, with two Gammill Statler Stitchers, we have quilted over 10,000 quilts. Concurrently, Ruth has published over one hundred sixty quilting patterns, three books, and developed two tools under the nom de plume of "Raggedy Ruth Designs". In addition, she has given over fifty presentations from coast-to-coast.
When one analyzes ten thousand quilts through the prism of having published, it gives one a certain perspective. We always have looked at our work as serving the Lord. As a result, we don't just plow through the quilts and get them out the door.
We take time at the front end to make sure we are meeting the envisioned desires that the piecer has for the quilt. On the back end, likewise, we let people know where we had problems and what they can do in the future to avoid the same issue. In between the front and back ends, if we see a problem that will affect a finished quilt that can be avoided, we will stop and call the piecer and discuss alternative / corrective measures.
So, after viewing 10,000 quilts, Ruth has seen a lot of piecing situations and choices that piecers made that lead to less that desirable results. She has classified and grouped them and presented them in sixty-one PowerPoint slides [there were a few additional slides thrown in about our new grandson]. She covered them all in forty-six minutes.
As far as I have heard, it appears that everyone loved the talk and had something new to take-away from it. I am trusting that I can reasonably report on the information presented in this new series.
If you have any questions, suggestions, or requests for Ruth to give your group a presentation, please let me know by email to RickG@ForeverInStitches.com [with your complete contact information] or by phone at 567.208.3572.
