design – Quilt for Joy by Kathryn

Squares and Swirls!

Published on February 18, 2017 by Kathryn Strasser1 Comment

One of my favorite parts about doing custom long-arm machine quilting is the opportunity to see what so many different people do with their fabrics and piecing patterns for their quilts. This quilt that I worked with over my Thanksgiving break last November is one that really caught my eye. The design is so unique, and I love the color combination!

My client left it up to me to decide what design to stitch onto this quilt. Because of all the straight lines in the piecing thanks to the square pattern, I chose a swirl pattern to add some texture and motion with the curved stitching. The piecing was very straightforward, so I wanted to keep the custom machine quilting simple to avoid having too much going on.

I hope you enjoyed these squares and swirls as much as I did! Thanks for stopping by the blog today, and I hope you come again soon!

~ By Kathryn

T-Shirt Quilts 2.0

Published on November 29, 2016December 8, 2016 by Kathryn StrasserLeave a comment

The T-shirt quilt pictured here, and the T-shirt quilt I posted about here were made by sisters with the help of their grandma. Even though they both used the same sashing fabric and layout design, I love how their individual personalities came through in the different T-shirts they used.

When I asked what type of long-arm quilting design the customer wanted, she told me to do an over-all design similar to what I have done for her in the past. She likes a little variety in the quilting.

To go along with the fun colors, I decided to do loops and add in some echoed loops to mix things up a bit. I made sure to do some of the echoed loops in areas of plain fabric so that they would show up more.

This quilt had this fun, flannel fabric for a backing which will make it a wonderful quilt to have on hand a winter approaches!

~ By Kathryn

Squares!

Published on November 21, 2016November 22, 2016 by Kathryn StrasserLeave a comment

This quilt was pieced by my mom and custom long-arm quilted by me a few months ago as an apartment warming gift for my older brother. We chose browns and blacks for a color scheme to match the furniture that my brother has in his new place.

To stay with the rectangle theme, I used the long-arm machine to custom quilt squares all over the quilt. This was great practice for me in free-handing straight lines, and my brother was quite impressed when he saw the finished quilting!

This quilt looks great in the living area of my brother’s apartment, and it is super comfy to curl up with while watching a football game on the TV… (I know because I’ve done it)!

Thanks for reading!

~ By Kathryn

T-Shirts Quilts 1.0

Published on November 17, 2016 by Kathryn Strasser1 Comment

T-shirt quilts are so special and unique! I love getting to spend time thinking about the stories behind each of the shirt squares as I add my custom, long-arm machine quilting.

The varity of T-shirts in the quilt had enough in common color wise to create a really neat color scheme of grays, reds, and blacks.

I added a combination of loops, swirls, and feathers with some echoing to this quilt with the long-arm machine.

The gray flannel backing fabric shows off the custom quilting very well, and makes the finished quilt so cozy! This was a fabulous quilt to work with, and having the privilege of adding my custom quilting to it made me so happy!

Thanks for visiting the blog today!

~By Kathryn

Kirstin’s Quilt

Published on September 26, 2016September 26, 2016 by Kathryn StrasserLeave a comment

My younger sister made her first quilt this summer! I’m a little late in posting these photos to my blog, but here they finally are 🙂

Kirstin has helped me out in the past by assisting with cutting the fabric for some of the quilts I have made, and with that practice she was ready to make a quilt by herself this summer.

Kirstin loves the pink and zebra color scheme, so for this quilt she asked me to do long-arm quilting that looked like zebra stripes in the pink chevrons. Since the multi-colored fabrics had busy patterns that would hide most of the long-arm quilting, I chose to do fun bubbles as a filler.

The finished quilt looks great in Kirstin’s pink and zebra bedroom!

~ By Kathryn

Sampler Snapshot

Published on September 17, 2016September 18, 2016 by Kathryn Strasser2 Comments

I’m excited to share some photos today of a sampler quilt that I made a few years ago.

My mom had gifted me the fabric which sat unused in my project box for several months. I absolutely loved the colors and patterns, but I was waiting until I came across just the right project to use the fabric for. As I was scrolling through Pinterest one day I saw a chevron quilt pattern and I knew that this was the pattern that I’d been looking for to go with these fabrics. Once I settled on a project idea I jumped right in, and in this case I was especially excited to get to the machine quilting stage! That provided plenty of motivation to finish piecing the quilt top in a relatively short amount of time.

Most of the fabrics have patterns which hide the custom machine quilting to some extent. Because of this I saved some of my favorite quilting patterns for the solid chevrons. I had so much fun long-arm quilting on a smaller scale then I usually do, as well as quilting a different pattern in each chevron stripe.

The photos of the back of this quilt are a little crazy to look at because I chose a polka-dot fabric, but these two photos allow you to see some of the different designs that I did in each of the chevrons. (Note: if you want the custom long-arm quilting that you have done on your quilt to show up well on the back, choose a solid fabric for your backing).

I was so happy with how this quilt turned out, and it perfectly matches the chair that I have in my room (now in my college dorm room)! It’s the perfect spot to curl up with a textbook to do some studying, or with a good book to enjoy a few lazy afternoon hours!

~By Kathryn

Baby Blocks

Published on September 10, 2016September 15, 2016 by Kathryn Strasser1 Comment

There are few things cuter than baby quilts, and this one was no exception! My grandma hand embroidered the blocks for this quilt which was a shower gift for my cousin and her husband who are expecting their first baby very soon!

When choosing a quilting design I wanted to be sure that the embroidered blocks were highlighted by the long-arm quilting. I used the long-arm machine to echo each of the embroidered animals and blocks.

To fill in the rest of the quilt, I long-arm quilted larger loops to look like bubbles for a playful look. The bubbles also matched the backing fabric that this quilt had.

This was a fun quilt to add custom quilting to on the long-arm machine and I can’t wait to hold the new baby when he or she arrives!

~ By Kathryn

Basketball & Bridges

Published on August 19, 2016September 15, 2016 by Kathryn StrasserLeave a comment

My little brother (who’s only little cause he is younger than me… Height wise he has me beat) moved into his first apartment earlier this summer, so my mom and I teamed up to make him this quilt as an apartment warming gift. He is a big fan of the Golden State Warriors pro-basketball team, so we used their team colors in this quilt.

When deciding how to custom quilt this throw sized quilt, mom and I realized that the piecing design created spaces that looked similar to the Golden Gate Bridge which is the logo for the Warriors basketball team.

This custom quilting definitely gave me lots of extra practice in free-hand quilting straight lines both vertically in the blue spaces, and horizontally in the yellow pieces. My brother was pleased with the result, and the quilt adds lots of fun color to his living room!

By Kathryn

Chevrons

Published on August 17, 2016September 15, 2016 by Kathryn StrasserLeave a comment

These two chevron quilts came from the same client, and I loved how she put a twist on the classic chevron to create hearts in one of them!

I quilted loops on one, and double loops on the other with the long-arm machine to provide an all-over design.

By Kathryn

Swirls & Feathers

Published on June 7, 2016May 5, 2023 by Kathryn StrasserLeave a comment

Doing the long-arm quilting on this client’s gorgeous quilt was so enjoyable for me! The piecing that she did on this quilt is stunning, and my goal when choosing the long-arm quilting design was simply to highlight the wonderful piecing.