Life in Color Photo – Celebrating crafts, kids and the everyday through photographs.

Life in Color mixed-media collage banner with vibrant patterned stripes and stitched edges, abstract art design.

Celebrating crafts, kids and the everyday through photographs.

Learning Something New
April 5, 2026
While I really love my Juki 2010Q for piecing quilts (it really does the best quarter inch seam), I don’t love it for quilting. It does totally fine straight line quilting, but when I start to free motion quilt things go haywire. I’m pretty sure somewhere along the way (I’ve had the machine about a dozen years) I messed up something and it seems I always have strange loops and skipped stitches. I want to admit it also could be the random fabric I use – not always plain quilting cotton. I often reuse clothing and I love vintage (and even modern 100% cotton) sheets as well. It’s not a total excuse but it is a big part of the reason I ended up with 18 quilt tops… OOPS.
I have taken a few quilts to be long armed before (notably this quilt for Ceara that I almost murdered trying to quilt on my old domestic machine), but it can be expensive. And it can be extra expensive when you’re picky (who me?). Last year I decided on a good middle of the road approach… what if I rented a long arm machine and did that myself? All the places I know of that let you rent, also require a class before you’re let free on the machines (these things are after all tens of thousands of dollars). I have a shop not far from me that allows this kind of thing but after months (and months) of calling and asking they never got a teacher for the machine so I was stuck. Finally when they suggest I pay for the class and then they would find a teacher I decided to look a little further away (I mean honestly, how sketchy is that?).
To my lovely quilt guild and our active community I went asking for advice. In order to see my friend Sarah once a week Corvallis Modern Quilt Guild is my main guild home now. Hence how I ended up about 40 minutes south of here last week learning a new skill. From about 9:30-1 we went over the basics of the machine, loading a quilt, basting, stitching, etc. Then from 1-5 I worked on this beauty.
Was long arm quilting everything I dreamed of? Oh yes. I loved it so so so much. I had spent the last few weeks sketching like crazy (per Christina‘s excellent advice.). I met Christina at the Portland Modern Quilt Guild and have all her excellent books: First Steps to Free Motion Quilting, Step by Step Free Motion Quilting, Step by Step Texture Quilting, and Free Motion Combinations. I mention these books (and you should know I’ve also taken a few of her classes) because my teacher said I was a natural and it was really easy to do for me. BUT I have done a lot of free motion quilting over the years on my domestic. And I do sketch a lot so I think that helped a ton.
I mean look at this amazing texture.
This pattern is straight from Christina. I’ve done it before and I love how it feels.
It took me four solid hours to hand guide quilt this 78 x 96 quilt (I’ll do a full post about this ender and leader quilt later). Or about $100 of long arm rental time. Really the only money I saved was the cost of my time. Usually a quilt this size is about $225 to quilt (with a computerized pattern). That sounds about right knowing the time (and tools, this is not a cheap set up!). I’m so thrilled I got to try this. I’m certified on her machine now and I’m going back this week to hopefully knock out some more quilts… only 17 left to go!
Amber’s Quilting Sheet of Greatness
February 21, 2026
Oh hello. I’m not even going to try and recap the last few years. Instead I want to share something awesome Bj made me years ago: A quilting sheet of greatness! I found these awesome spreadsheets from Generations Quilt Patterns, but they were limited to bed sizes, and not editable. I asked Bj to make me one that I could edit for smaller sized quilts and he came through with the coolest spreadsheet ever!
In this sharable template you are able to change the words (“baby”, “small throw”, etc.) and your desired size. Then it will automatically calculate how many blocks you need to make. I feel like there is no way I’m the first one to want a sheet like this or make one, but I couldn’t find a calculator for block amounts exactly like this so I thought I’d share. Enjoy!
Quilting sheet of greatness
Oh and the quilt above? It is pieced from a bag of triangle scraps I’d saved for years. I haphazardly sewed them to a 5″ square block and then trimmed them down to 3.5″. A very satisfying use of small scraps.
A spinning mat like this Fisker’s one is a must. I also like using little repositional marking strips (Glow Line tape by Omnigird is great) to make sure I don’t have too big of a corner on the block. With my bag of triangle scraps and spreadsheet I decided to make a small throw. I made 340 blocks and it will finish at 51 x 60.
I actually drafted this post four years ago (oops) and have just pin basted this quilt! I can’t wait to quilt it up.
Random Quilting from 2018
October 21, 2019
None of these sewing projects warrants a whole post (what does these days??), but I wanted to have a record that I did sew a lot in 2018. I made some minis, working on some improve skills (I love The Improve Handbook for Modern Quilters). I tried to finish some of my many, MANY UFOs (unfinished objects!). I finally quilted up my Moda Building Blocks for charity. I took a bunch of Christina Cameli classes (online and in person, she is a member of our PMQG guild).
I made my friend Carmen the biggest quilt I’ve ever made and the largest I can make in my house and baste here! I had to move my dining room furniture to fit this beast, I think it ended up at 92×92. I just started sewing scraps together (a la Crazy Mom Quilts) and Carmen said she liked it so I asked her if she wanted it. She did and requested this size. Now you would think after this I would be out of scraps, sadly, no.
To date I think I have made 8 or 9 rainbow picnic blankets. I’ve actually lost count! I did start an Evernote doc to keep track of all my quilts I’ve made and where they are. But I went through a few phases of making a handful of picnic blankets at a time so I honestly can’t remember how many I’ve finished. I know I still have a stack of blocks to make even more!
I finally made a scrappy trip around the world. I finished this one for a friend and then helped another friend make one all out of blues and greens. Oh man, I can see why so many people were obsessed with these. Very fun and addictive way to use up scraps. Hmm looking at this makes me want to start another! My Juki continues to be my BEST sewing purchase. With 1,500 stitches a minute it’s no wonder I finish so many quilts! Bj and I are hoping to have time to get a hole cut in my desk for it so I can quilt longer in a better posture.
2019 saw more quilting, but not as many finishes. I guess I still have a few months to do that! With the weather I should be inside more, so we’ll see how much I can get finished!

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