Nuggets of Advice for New Longarm Owners - Part 6

I'm going to finish up this series talking about the ultimate blankets: charity quilts. When I bought my first longarm it arrived the week before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana and Alabama. You may remember that there was a huge quilt drive for Katrina quilts. I think that actually got really out of hand but I saw a great opportunity to practice on my new longarm and jumped right in. I bought a couple of quilt tops off eBay and got a few from my guild members.

I'm happy to tell you that I don't have any photos of those quilts. The quilting was pretty awful but they got done and I got practice! 

New longarm owners often seek out charity quilts for practice and that's a great thing but you have to be careful that your charity quilting doesn't start to overwhelm you.
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Set some rules around your charity quilting.

I quilt a lot of charity quilts for my quilt club. We donate lap size quilts to the local VA hospital. We've been doing it for several years and finish about 60 quilts each year. I decided that quilting them would be my contribution to charity quilting in addition to making 2 QOV quilts each year. I quilt up to 40 of the veterans quilts each year and I'm able to do that because I set some rules. Before you accept your first charity quilt you need to set some rules too or else you will be set up for burn out.

Here are my rules for the quilters:

• I quilt no more that 40 quilts each year and I do not guarantee that I do that many.
• The quilt tops can't be larger than 48 x 60 because at that size I can quilt 2 quilts at a time on one width of wide backing
• The quilts must be pressed and ready for quilting. If I get a wrinkled quilt that's how it gets quilted. 
• I don't fix problems. I must get the quilt ready to be quilted.
• No one has any say over the thread color I use or how I quilt a quilt. Sometimes I use a quilt to practice something but I never do anything that will take more than 2 hours for a quilt.
• I don't quilt on a deadline. Sometimes I have a top for months before it gets quilted. The quilts get quilted when I have time and motivation to do them.

Does that seem harsh? No one has complained and our club members are always very appreciative and seem to love how I quilt them. 

Here are my rules for myself:

• I spend no more than 2 hours on any veteran quilt
• I quilt them 2 at a time and pair up quilt tops with backs so that I don't have to change thread between quilts.
• I'm using the charity quilts to use some threads that I don't use on my own quilts anymore.

I don't have any problems with people trying to guilt me into quilting.  Several of our members make quilts for other organizations. I don't quilt those quilts. Occasionally we make a large raffle quilt and I don't quilt those either.  I've set the veterans quilts as my contribution. 

You cannot do everything. Maybe your contribution will be baby quilts for the local hospital or the one raffle quilt that your guild makes every year or pet pads for the local shelter. Find the cause that is meaningful for you and doable with your schedule and focus on that. Here's what you say to everyone else:

"I'm sorry, I have quilts to fill my charity quota for the year. Do you want me to put you on the list for next year? I can call you when I'm ready to take another if you still have it them."

"I'm sorry, I can't commit to that deadline. I do charity quilts when I have time between my customer/personal quilts. It could be as long as 6 months before I can get to it."

"No, I'm sorry, I don't custom quilt charity quilts. I select the design and thread. If you need a specific design you will likely have to pay someone to quilt it for you."

 It's also perfectly OK for you to decline to do any charity quilting. Do not let anyone guilt you into doing any quilt that you don't want to do.

Be firm about your rules to maintain your sanity. Remember that you are doing someone a favor. No one has any right to use your time for free without your full willingness.

I hope you've enjoyed the series this week. As I said Monday, this is a series that I've been wanting to writes for a long time. It's all the information that I wish someone has told me when I bought my first longarm in 2005. 

In a couple of weeks I'll move all of these posts over to the tutorial section of the web so that they will be easier to find. On Monday we will be back to regular programming!