It’s Thursday and it’s time to linky up your quilty process here at Pretty Bobbins!  Sometimes I think too much, I always have.  In fact one of my favourite things to do is quilt and think (I’m not one to watch TV and piece, I prefer the company of my own thoughts).  This week I’ve been thinking a lot about being a professional quilter and blogger and what that means.  But first up I want to feature the incredibly talented Jess of The Elven Garden.

Image used with permission from The Elven Garden

I remember first coming across Jess and being so incredibly impressed with her quilting.  Seriously amazing stuff!  She is now teaching and has been published in magazines and is generally a bit of a quilting superstar in my books  I’m looking forward to meeting Jess in real life and sharing a room at QuiltCon next year!!

Image used with permission from The Elven Garden – saw this in person, it’s AMAZING!!

Yesterday Jess wrote a post about thinking and quilting.  Now I’ll admit that I quilt and think, the two go hand in hand for me.  Jess talked about how some of us are mindful quilters and some aren’t and how she’s realised that she is totally happy “just” making pretty things and being happy <3  Jess, I’ll be happy if you keep making pretty things!  The world needs more quilt candy, be it mindfully made or thrown together with purpose rather than deep thought involved

Image used with permission from The Elven Garden

Seriously, this kind of talent kills me!  ABSOLUTELY stunning!  If you haven’t already, please head over to The Elven Garden and say hi to Jess.  Her work is all things wonderful <3

Quilting with my Miss

The only quilting I’ve been up to lately is a super simple quilt for Francois, my daughter’s class mascot.  The children in her class laid out the charm squares and we made the quilt together at home.  We added photographs to the Francois’ scrapbook and I have hung a few copies in my sewing room <3

Triangle quilt in progress

As usual I have been thinking a lot about my business and I’ve decided to aim to have a market stall.  We all know that pricing is arguably the hardest part of quilting and I very much believe that we should charge what we’re worth.  I have a super hard time following through with this and generally tend to sell myself short.  I have decided that everything I make for market will be properly priced.  I’ve been timing myself as I’m working and you may be interested to hear my progress.

Cutting:  50 minutes

Layout: 40 minutes

Piecing: 205 minutes

That’s almost 5 hours of work before basting, quilting and binding and this is only a cot sized quilt.  Of course I will probably chicken out and charge far less than the finished quilt is actually worth, but at least by figuring out an accurate cost based on time, materials and skill I can educate myself.  In this same vein I urge you to visit this post by Mandalei Quilts on working for free.  It is definitely food for thought and fits with my own experience of realising that as much as I love to accept free fabric, the work that I put into my work is worth far more than the say $50 worth of free fabric.  As a business I just don’t think I can afford to work for free anymore.  I’d LOVE to hear your thoughts on this one

So that’s my thinky quilty Thursday  Please link up your quilty process below <3