Are you looking for an affordable option for longarm quilting? Follow my journey as I look for the best budget options for purchasing a quilting longarm.

Kathy Schwartz has owned her own longarm quilting business, Tamarack Shack Longarm Quilting, for more than nine years. She lives in Ontario, Canada and has a loyal following on the internet who enjoy seeing her signature style of quilting. We recently asked her a few questions...

It wasn't that long ago when hand quilting was the only option available for humans, but technology has provided us with numerous options today. A good

Another week gone... Still working away on my Japanese Table runner, however had many distractions this week. As I am not working on any bigger project at the minute I have been free to just explore different things that tackle my fancy. We had the Australian Machine Quilting Show in town last weekend and I spent most of the afternoon there, coming home with a bag of goodies. Bought another book... 'Dream Feathers by Peggy Holt' and have been drawing feathers all week and practising FMQ in general. Karin's Swirly Freeform Feather How cool is this. This is the final version of a drawing I started earlier in the week. All freehand...I am very impressed with this book, it seems to have made that final link for me in terms of putting feathers together. At first I was a bit sceptical as Peggy Holt talked a lot about coming up with your own versions of designs but before I knew it I had half a book full of different ideas...some good and some not so good. Main thing was they were all achievable and were tailor-made to what I like and find easiest. This is what I like about this book, you do not need to hunt around for that perfect motif, rather you can just make it up yourself making it fit into the specific space that you need to fill on a quilt. I did stitch the drawing above and did the feathers freehand in a 4 inch space. Worked fine in the feathers without marking but realised I would need to draw in the base shape beforehand, as this is just too long to stitch freehand without a wobble in it. Will keep going on this... In terms of UFOs, here is the next one that needs completing  This a panel I stitched together into a wall hanging. I used it to try different decorative stitches of the machine and outlined the main parts just with the walking foot (yes, this has been sitting in the cupboard for a few years by now). The problem was that it left me with hundreds of threads to sew in and this took the fun out of it and it got left behind. Not sure what to do with it and even thought about chucking it...I used a wool batting for this and it is very puffy. Maybe I should use it to practice FMQ in it. I could microstipple the background behind the house, outline some cats and birdhouses...the border has little stars in it, so I thought I could do a loopy line design with some stars in between. Question: - If I microstipple one area will I then have to heavily quilt all around it to make it even or could I just outline some of the cats for example in the next few sections. Not sure whether this would look odd with a heavily quilted section in between. And what is this...yes, could not help myself...trialling a new block I found. It is from the EQ program Blockbase and is called Gumleaf Here are 2 blocks sewn together out of scraps, forming one half of the very skinny star in the middle. Love this, just have to find a way to deal with the bulk of the seams where the three skinny points meet. This is foundation pieced, so comes out very accurate (I use very thin interfacing for the foundation rather than paper- this way it can be left in). As you can see I am off in all sorts of directions at the moment. Should be interesting to see what I actually end up doing. Linking up to Leah Day's UFO Sunday later on. Until next time Karin

Hi Friends! Let me start with a quick hello and answer a few questions. I am still quilting, for myself and currently lo...

As it turns out I am not very motivated to clean my studio. I headed out there this weekend with all good intentions of getting my space clean and I honestly cleaned (or more accurately, contemplated cleaning) for a total of five minutes before I found myself distracted by a drawing I had started at Quiltcon in my Compositional Quilting/DRAWING class. I have to admit that after returning home from Quiltcon I have felt a little panicked. Panicked that I taught everything I had and that I was going to be out of ideas. I began looking through some of the pictures I had taken while teaching (admittedly way too few) and that beautiful quote by Leonard Nimoy came back to me again. "The Miracle is this, the more we share, the more we have." Some Brilliant student work Wow. Wow. Wow. and WOW. It was either the threat of cleaning or all of the energy and openness that I absorbed from my students that inspired me again....or maybe a little bit of both. I wasn't really out of ideas after all. Phew. I put away any thoughts about cleaning (which wasn't hard) and started drawing and then quilting something I am pretty sure will be a sample for another class. As a rule I don't generally mark on quilts. A whole cloth type quilt is obviously an exception to this rule. In my Compositional Quilting/DRAWING class we spend the class marking on mylar and then marking on a whole cloth. Many years ago I took a whole cloth design class from Karen McTavish. It was a full day spent designing a whole cloth quilt that we took home to quilt. If you ever find yourself with an opportunity to take a class with her or see her lecture, DO IT, I'm not kidding. Whole cloth quilts are traditional by nature and are generally designed using beautiful floral or feathered motifs, stencils and if you have the patience the quilting usually involves some trapunto. This was my finished Wholecloth quilt from Karens class. From class to quilt. In my Compositional Drawing-(expanded version) class it is my hope to merge the traditional with a more modern aesthetic. I don't know that a whole cloth will ever be considered "modern" but I do believe in my heart of hearts that there is a place for this type of quilting and design somewhere. This is the fundamental basis for Compositional Quilting Filling in the blanks I had to get rid of my free motion drawn swirls, I found I could not follow my own drawings. I managed to quilt in the areas of feathers I should have left unquilted Some new moon ideas This is as far as I got, not bad for a weekend. As you can see, cleaning is overrated and I am not out of ideas yet. I am hoping to be teaching this class and many others in the near future. I will keep you posted on the details here. For those of you who feel inspired by this post, awesome. For those of you who enjoyed this post but feel less inspired and more discouraged by this post this last picture is for you. While I openly admit I have skills, I know that those skills didn't come without a lot of failures, practice and flat out shitty quilting. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt, be ok with shit quilting, move on, take classes, learn as much as you can from yourself and others. You will never quilt exactly like me, just as I will never quilt exactly like Karen McTavish. And thank goodness for that, lord knows theres only room for one of her, and me and you. Be ok with that. You be You.

Border Design with Celtic Bubbles Now that you have tried quilting this beautiful overlapping spiral design, I'll show you a fe...

Seriously peeps, I have the best life. This month I got to quilt for Tula Pink. Yes, THAT Tula Pink. It was some pretty exciting times.

Love pearls. Love pearl earrings. Love pearls bracelets. Love pearl necklaces. Love pearl embellishments. Love pearls. Yes, even the fake ones, since those are the only ones I can really afford. Costume jewelry? I'm on it! What doesn't look good in pearls? Jeans? Pearls. Sundress? Pearls. Comfy tee? Pearls. Name-brand suit? Pearls. Wedding dress? You've got it...PEARLS! So what do pearls have to do with quilts and quilting? Not so much. Unless you love both. Then you find a way to incorporate one into the other. A little inspiration... The last several designs come from a blog I discovered while writing this post. Shala lives in AK and posts mandalas on her lovely blog, Don't Eat the Paste, and Pinterest, which is where I found her work. Please visit her here and here. (And say thank you from Mary at Fleur de Lis Quilts!) Have a great week!

I am delighted to have Patsy Thompson as our December FMQ Expert, for the 2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge. Whe...

Custom Quilting is determined by how complex and dense the quilting is. I hope that these photos and descriptions can help you to determin...

This quilt made its way to me from Arizona. A gal is teaching this pattern (a Jacqueline de Jonge pattern) in a class at a community college and asked me to quilt it after seeing an article I wrote…

Explore AngelaFMQ's 220 photos on Flickr!

Customer Quilts Quilt by Noelle Powers Quilt by Noelle Powers Quilt by Heather Bostic Quilt by Jenny Redwig Quilt by Jenny Redwig Quilt by Julianna Gasiorowska Quilt by Julianna Gasiorowska Quilt by Michelle @Ilikeorangetoo Quilt by Penny Layman Quilt by Cindy Wiens Quilt by Cindy Wiens Customer Quilt Quilt by Angela Pingel Quilt by Katie Pedersen Quilt by Katie Pedersen Quilt by Krista Fleckenstein Quilt by Krista Fleckenstein Quilt by Sonja Callaghan Quilt by Sonja Callaghan Quilt by Jenny Redwig Quilt by Krista Fleckensten Quilt by Alison Robins Amanda's Value Quilt Personal Quilts

For all of us machine quilters who are looking for some new ideas for quilting designs, this is a wonderful new book by Cindy Seitz-Krug, an award winning quilter and teacher who uses her home machine for quilting, published by AQS. What is great about this book and a bit different is how effortlessly the "workbook" idea leads you through all kinds of lovely designs, shows you how to break them down into simple do-able elements that are controlled by a marked grid. Sometimes in the end you see the grid, others times only curvy lines and designs that make the viewer ask "how in the world was that done???" Below, details of Cindy's quilting: The designs are great, but all the options she shows us with size, color of thread, scale of design, where and how to use them really help when trying to figure out what design to use where in a quilt. There are tons of illustrations, diagrams, quilted samples to help you achieve these designs. The workbook idea insures you will be able to start at the beginning, follow along, and get a quilted design by yourself! One of the first grid designs I tried years ago when I was looking for a simpler method for a design of overlapping circles was one I called "Diane-shiko" (below) as it was a new way to mark and quilt an old Sashiko design. When the marked lines are removed the circles emerge so it looks as if you quilted circles. This is the basic idea Cindy uses to create all sorts of designs with the grid to guide you. Above you can see the 1/2" marked grid, and the stitching around the lines to form this timeless design. Below, the design used in one of my quilts, "Shadows of Umbria," which Cindy also has featured in her new book. A grid design will showcase curvy designs with its formality and regularity. These designs look difficult but many are absolutely beginner level and with some practice you'll be adding many of Cindy's designs, methods, ideas to your own quilts. Visit Cindy at her website and blog to find out more: www.quintessentialquilting.com Below, one more peek at her quilting: If you were in some of my last classes I taught a design called "Ginkgo." In Cindy's quilt above she uses it as fill around larger scale designs. Below is one of my samples of this lovely design, and Cindy includes a much easier way to mark and quilt it called "Twisted Ginkgo" in this new book. It's one of my favorite designs ever in the way it looks, and how much fun it is to quilt. I experimented and tried Cindy's method to quilt this design, and it worked perfectly. I'm thrilled she could explain it so well, and the diagrams and photos are exactly what you need so you too can add this design to your skills. Congratulations to Cindy on a great book and for her recent award at Road to California for Excellence in Machine Quilting for her wholecloth quilt "Blush." Hope winter is giving you lots of time to quilt, and to play with ideas on your sewing machine. Keep quilting! Your work gets better every day! Diane

I have returned home from the Festival of Quilts after having a wonderful time with friends yet again. I was exhausted but very happy. I saw some gorgeous quilts and some amazing quilting. I hope my photographs do them justice. 'Autumn Blues' by Alexandra Nikulina Russia 'Sun-turn' ("Kolovorot") by Loskutnye Zabavy Patchwork Studio led by A. Nikulina Russia 'A Square, a Stripe, a Triangle' by Loskutnye Zabavy Patchwork Studio led by A. Nikulina Russia I seem to be a big fan of Russian quilts and this was true last year as well when I liked Marina Maminova's work. When I saw this next quilt, I said to my sister that it was like the swoon quilt made by Camille Roskelley whose blog I follow. 'Swooning' by Kay Bell Well it is. Kay was apparently part of the online sew along group with quilts made from Camille's pattern. The quilting here is hand guided freemotion on a longarm and is amazing! Hand guided freemotion quilting This next quilt won 3rd Prize in the Group Quilts Category. 'Scandinavian Journey' pieced by Jo Colwill of Cowslip Workshops and quilted by Sandy Chandler of The Quilting Company I loved the neutral palette, stars and again the quilting was great. Another onlooker placed her hand in front of the quilt to show how small the background grid quilting was on the quilt. I love the circles on the spine of the feather. I got some lovely Aurifil threads from the New Threads Quilt Shop and as Aurifil is my favourite thread, I also bought a thread shade card. I have used the card already to match thread for a baby panel that I bought at the show. They had an amazing selection of Aurifil thread. 'Greek Fossils' by Ferret As always, Ferret's quilt was amazing!!! Hand guided longarming and trapunto. It won 3rd Prize in the Traditional Quilts section. 'Flower of 13115 Pieces & Peace' by Hiromi Yokota This quilt was made by hand of 1cm hexagon pieces. Each individual hexagon was hand quilted. Amazing!!! Well those were some of my favourites from the show. I hope you enjoyed them. And finally, on the way home from the airport, this is the wonderful sunset that we drove into. What a lovely way to finish off our trip. Bye for now. Sandra

In an unprecedented act of blogging fanciness I decided to make a video documenting how I create the woodgrain texture (so thoroughly p...

This piece is absolutely breathtaking! Perfect for Valentines Day, Wedding, Anniversary or Engagement. I can personalize with embroidery for an extra charge. Raw edge hearts were sewn with multiple fabric strips and fused to white cotton fabric. Heart edges were finished with a zig zag stitch and heart was outlined with straight stitching in pink thread. The top was then layered over two layers of batting and backing fabric and free-motion quilted on my longarm. This was not quilted with robotics. After quilting, the edges were trimmed and finished with double fold binding for beauty and durability. Finished size 21 inches square. Wash with shout color catchers, remove promptly from wash and lay flat to dry, line dry or dry on low heat.

Check out how I custom quilted Kim Diehl's Hope and Harmony quilt, which is in her new Simple Double-Dipped Quilts book. I share which rulers I used, the batting, thread color, and my quilting process for the background design.