The Holiday Crunch is On!
The holidays are around the corner and many long arm quilters are chained to their machines cranking out holiday quilts for their customers. I’m one of them.
My days are very structured and planned out between now and November 29 when my husband and I leave for our 12 day southern caribbean cruise. I’m very thankful that my husband is supportive during this crunch time. He is the night manager for the NJ Traffic Operations Dept, so he leaves at around noon, and doesn’t come home till after 10pm. My daughter, Sarah, goes to college and also works at our local Home Depot, so I don’t see much of her either anymore.
When you have been long arm quilting for a while, you sort of know how long a certain size quilt with a certain design will take you. I head out to the gym in the early morning (6:30 ish) for an hour. When I come home, I usually will have coffee with my husband, and am at my machine ready to work by 8:30. I work till I’m done, and then load the next quilt. THEN I take a break (and my breaks consist of a regular Thurs noon ladies lunch with my friends, Debbie, Rebecca and “Good Kim” – don’t ask, that’s the nickname she earned – or running over to our local shop to pick up or drop off quilts, or perhaps running to the grocery store). I begin the afternoon quilt, and once again, work until its done and load the next quilt. Dinner time! Its just me, so that means a grilled cheese or something simple. After dinner, I head down to my other studio where I work on class samples or perhaps across the hall to the office to do paperwork. I’m there till about 8:00.
On the weekends, I’ll get up around 4:30/5:00 am, and do emails etc over coffee and then get working by 6:30ish. I can sometimes get three quilts done per day on weekends. PHEW are you exhausted yet. Sat night (ok, late afternoon so we can get the early bird specials) is date night and I get to spend some time with the man.
From the end of November through probably mid March is when I get a lot of class samples done, do my writing and quilt some of my samples. We finish all my samples and donate most of them to the Delaware Valley Golden Retriever Rescue for them to auction off and raise money for their facility.
Believe it or not, for the last five years, August has always been our busiest month – and the holiday rush hasn’t started yet. I don’t know why. This past August, we had 60+ quilts here waiting their turn.
I’m looking forward to our cruise. We’re going to visit Barbados, Antigua, St Thomas (where I will burn a hole in his wallet at my favorite jewelry store), San Juan, St Maarten and Domenica.
I will very proudly read from my Kindle (which I figured out how to operate without teenage assistance) and catch up on all my NCIS and CSI episodes that I missed when I fell asleep on the couch.
Linda Hahn
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About the Author: Linda Hahn
Linda received her National Quilting Association Teacher Certification in 1999. She has been three times nominated for Professional Quilter Magazine’s Teacher of the Year award. She was also nominated for the 2008 Certified Teacher of the Year award from the National Quilting Association. She was recently been named Marketing Consultant for Elizabeth’s Studio, a new fabric company. Linda is on the faculty for the 2008 NQA Show in Columbus, Ohio. In August 2007 she taped a quilting segment for EBRUTV, Somerset, New Jersey. She has been part of the faculty at the New Jersey Quilt Convention since 2005 and was the featured teacher at the Frost Valley Quilting Weekend in 2004. Linda is on the teaching staff at Creative Sew n Sews, Englishtown, New Jersey. Linda has taught in Bermuda twice and twice on a quilting cruise. Linda, her daughter Sarah and business partner Merry May, present Bed, Breakfast & Quilt Getaways – affectionately known as “BBQ”. Linda and Merry are currently working together on several books and will be designing quilts and patterns for Elizabeth’s Studio. Linda has done commission work for Elizabeth’s Studio, Shamash & Sons, Kreinik Thread Manufacturing Company and Sullivans, USA. Her work has appeared in Quilting Now Magazine, The Professional Quilter, Quilt Almanac, Quilt Magazine and the NQA Quilting Quarterly. Linda is co-owner of Two Country Quilters, a long arm machine quilting business. Two Country Quilters also vends hard to find and specialty quilting items at New Jersey Quilt Shows. She lives in Manalapan, New Jersey with her husband, Allan, daughter, Sarah and her golden retriever, Amber Lynn, all of whom are involved in quilting!
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