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.
I used the long-arm machine to add swirls and feathering to offset all of the straight lines, and to add some motion to the quilt.
And here is a photo of the quilt back where you can see all of the swirls.
By Kathryn
I know, I know, Christmas was several months ago. However, I wanted to share the custom machine quilting that I did a few months back on this Christmas themed wall-hanging. My client based her design off of a vintage Christmas card. She gave me the vintage card and the wall-hanging with the appliqued stars and letters, and asked me to custom machine quilt the background designs that were on the vintage card. I love a challenge, and this project was definitely just that!
Here are before and after photos of the piece:
Since I needed to use three different thread colors to complete the piece, I divided the custom machine quilting into three sections. First, I used light gray thread to create the pine branches and snowflakes on the dark gray background of the wall-hanging.
I loved seeing the extra dimension that these pine branches and snowflakes added to the piece as I stitched them! Next came the stitching in the letters with a metallic thread in a dark gold color. That was followed up with loops and swirls in the stars to frame the letters using a dark brown thread.
I enjoyed it the process of adding custom machine quilting to this lovely piece, as usual, and my client was thrilled with the finished result!
I hope you didn’t mind the tiny bit of Christmas spirit in this post as summer quickly approaches!
By Kathryn
I have been in college for the last 20 months (5 semesters in a row, right through the summer), and in two days I will be headed home for the summer! I love college, but a major downfall to living on campus is that I cannot custom machine quilt as often as I would like to. With summer break quickly approaching, I have been making plans for the quilts that I want to make, and the new long-arm machine techniques that I want to try.
I started using a drawing app on my computer to practice my quilting designs in hopes that it would help pass the time until I can use the real machine. Here is a quick preview of some loops I doodled the other day! I love how close to my actual quilting style I can get with these drawing apps and dashed lines – some of the lines are a little choppy, but we will blame that on my computer mouse 🙂
Here’s to surviving finals week and quilting all summer long! I can’t wait!
By Kathryn
Quilt for Joy by Kathryn 