Gallery of longarm quilting
Here are several quilts I finished for customers using my new longarm machine. These quilts have been returned to thier homes, but if you see something you like you may email me about building a custom quilt for you.
Disney Charity Quilts (Fall 2010)
These three quilts were brought to me by a very dear friend I've had the pleasure of teaching to quilt over the last couple years. These quilts were intended to go to the Downy Quilts for Kids charity. She had a great time piecing them and I had a great time quilting them. The Snow White quilts was done in a swirly heart pantograph called Cutie Patootie. The Pinnochio quilt was done in a large star pantograph and the Cars quilt received a car design. They all turned out very cute.
Squares Throw Quilt (Fall 2010)
This was the third quilt I did for a local lady with a great eye for fabrics. She normally chooses alot of oriental fabrics, but this quilt was going to be a gift for one of her relatives who liked bright colors and busy prints. She selected an intertwining knot design called forget-me-knot for the body of the quilt and then two different patterns for each of the borders. The quilting was lovely and I hope the young girl enjoys it.
Irish Chain Quilt (Fall 2010)
This is another quilt brought to me by a lady in my local quilt guild. I've had the joy of working on many of her quilts and this one was going to be a gift to one of her sons. She choose a leafy all over pantograph for the body of the quilt and a beautiful lily flower design for the border. It was quilted with a variegated green thread from the King Tut line. It turned out wonderful and I hope her son and daughter-in-law really like the quilt.
Downy Quilts for Kids Charity Quilts(Summer 2010)
These quilts were brought to me by one of my favorite male quilters. He and a friend discovered the Downy Quilts for Kids Program. Downy mails you the fabrics and pattern needed to make a small quilt for a hospitalized child. You piece, quilt, and bind it, then mail it back to them along with a second quilt you made using your own scraps. They then take the quilts to many different facilites where the quilts are handed out to children with life threatening illnesses and children of abuse. More than 10,000 quilts have been donated in 2010 alone. I was happy to donate my time to longarm quilt these adorable quilts for children in need. If you would like more information on the Downy Quilts for Kids project, please visit their website at www.quiltsforkids.org
Celtic Knot Squares Quilt (Summer 2010)
I was originally contacted by a lady looking for someone doing hand quilting. Unfortunatly, there are very few quilters still doing this by hand as a business. When she was unable to find a hand quilter, she again contacted me to give a longarm quilter a try. I was very happy to work with her and we had a great time flipping through patterns and motifs. For this quilt she selected a beautiful celtic knot motif to go inside each of her 120 squares. I also placed a simple feather design in the narrow border around the whole quilt. There were so many different color blocks in the top. I didn't want the thread to compete, so we went with a neutral cream color. The quilting was slow, centering each celtic knot, but the surprise came when I took the finished quilt off the frame. When I flipped it over to view the back, a wonderful interlocking ring design was revealed. I really love how this quilt turned out and I can't wait to use that pattern on another quilt.
Spiral Log Cabin Quilt (Summer 2010)
This quilt and the one above were both brought to me by the same lady. She wanted a simple geometric design and really liked the spiral pantograph when she saw it. It complimented the illusion of spirals in the log cabin blocks. She loved batik fabrics and we went with a neutral cream color thread so nothing would detract from the fabrics in the quilt. She was looking for heavy quilting so the quilt will hold up well for many years. We sized the pantograph to be about 4-5 inches tall and it made the quilting very dense. She really liked the finished product.
Dragonfly Quilt (Summer 2010)
This was the second quilt I've finished for this particular customer. She has a wonderful eye for oriental fabrics and I love the look of each of her quilts. She is planning to enter this quilt in the fair so we pushed to get it finished before August rolled around. You'll notice this quilt has a narrow red border between the main body of the quilt and the border. That is actually a three dimensional free floating flange that flips back and forth. To accomodate the flange or piping in the quilting, we choose a dragonfly pantograph to fill the body of the quilt and a seperate lilypad border to fill the black dragonfly area. Nothing stitched across the red fabric so it is still free to flip around. We used a beautiful variegated green/gold thread for the interior pantograph and a deep brown thread to quilt in the black border areas. The quilt turned out lovely and I expect it to do well in the show.
Autumn Leaves Quilt (Summer 2010)
This quilt was brought to me by a retire Navy Chief and brand new quilter. This was his first quilt and he did an amazing job in my opinion. The fabrics consisted of many earth tones and a splash of red. We choose a wind-swept leaf pantograph for the longarm quilting. We also went with a neutral tone thread that complimented many of the colors in the quilt, but stood out beautifully against the bright red accent fabric. The finished quilt was great and I look forward to working with him again.
Celebration Trapunto Quilt (Summer 2010)
This quilt was brought to me by another repeat customer I very much enjoyed bouncing ideas around with. The entire quilt started with that central panel. She had heard about my trapunto work and was interested in doing trapunto in that center panel to accent the ladies and all thier details. We choose a religious star pantograph to fill in the brightly colored areas around the panel. I did a very tight stipple in the brown banner underneath the panel which emphasized the bible verse she had custom embroidered there. On the actual panel, I did channel quilting in the blue/black areas. In the lime green area I did a medium sized flame stipple to flatten the background. I also did a very tight stipple in the cloud area around the ladies to flatten the background in those spots, as well. The leaves at the top of the panel were outlined. All three ladies were outlined and I quilted to accent each woman's dress and jewelry. The quilt looks lovely from the front, but the trapunto beauty comes alive on the back of the quilt which is a solid sheet of bright green fabric. All the details I quilted over in the panel become three dimensional on the back and puff up due to the trapunto. She was thrilled with the finished quilt and I really enjoyed longarm quilting it.
Iris Star Quilt (Spring 2010)
This quilt was made by the generous and kind hearted lady who introduced me to the Millington Quilters Guild. She is also a Master Gardener and I enjoy picking her brain about what flowers to plant in the yard. She made this beautiful star quilt top as a gift for her daughter-in-law but had no idea what to do for the quilting. We went through several pattern catalogs and finally decided on an iris and ribbon motif. This is the most detailed and intricate quilt I have had the pleasure to work on so far. Each motif had to be individually rotated and precisely placed in each segment of the quilt. I placed a ribbon pattern down the borders to surround the quilt. Each point of the stars has a diamond shaped iris motif placed inside them (eight points per star). Then I placed a square or triangle iris motif in the black background fabric surrounding each star. In total, there are 144 motifs sewn into this quilt. It turned out absolutely beautiful. I may have to borrow the pattern and make one of these quilts for myself, I love it so much!
Daisy Nine Patch Quilt (Spring 2010)
This quilt was made by a student in our Double Nine Patch class at A Stitch Away in Millington. This is only the third quilt she had every made, but she always has a great eye for color. She selected very bold pinks, purples, and blues for her fabrics. We went with a daisy pantograph called Cristofer's Panto to cover the whole quilt. We selected a pink and purple king tut thread called Egyptian Princess and the binding fabric was a deep blue. The quilt turned out beautiful and I'm always proud of her creations.
Snowball Hummingbird Quilt (Spring 2010)
This quilt was made by a woman that loved playing with fabric. She started off with a pattern for her quilt, but when it didn't look right to her eye she fiddled with the fabric and layouts. She finally settled on this beautiful snowball quilt. The blocks alternated from highly detailed blocks filled with tiny slivers of green and yellow fabrics to large white squares. As soon as I saw it, I knew that white space needed to be filled with a hummingbird motif I'd used on a few other quilts. We selected a King Tut thread called Limestone that beautifully matched the green and yellow tones in her quilt and stood out wonderfully in the white spaces. We also went with a simple feather motif in her braided border.
Quilt of Valor - Charity Quilt (Spring 2010)
This quilt was made by the Millington Quilters Guild, which I joined at the start of the year. They do hundreds of charity quilts and I was given two tops to finish "as I saw fit". Since they were Quilts of Valor destined to be gifts for enlisted troops, I choose a red, white, and blue thread by King Tut called Freedom. The design I selected for the longarm quilting was a wonderful pantograph by Anne Bright called Where Eagles Dare. I hope the new owners enjoy them as much as I enjoyed working on them.
Munford Band T-shirt Quilt (Spring 2010)
This quilt was made by a mother who wanted to surprise her son with a quilt made of his old band t-shirts. The first one was made from shirts from high school and the second was made from his college band shirts. In this one, we used a maroon color thread by King Tut. The design she selected for the longarm quilting was a beautiful pantograph of music notes. She supplied me with a very high loft polyester batting and the quilting really gave it great definition.
St. Jude Children's Quilt - Charity Quilt(Spring 2010)
This is another quilt made by the Millingtong Quilters Guild. This quilt was going to the St. Jude Children's Hospital to brighten the day of a sick child. I selected a bright turquiose thread color that went well with all the bright fabrics in the patchwork. The design I used for the longarm quilting was a popular heart design called Cutie Patootie. The quilt turned out great and made someone very special smile.
Mississippi State Band T-shirt Quilt(Spring 2010)
This is the second band t-shirt quilt brought to me by the mother I mentioned earlier. This quilt was made from her son's Mississippi State band t-shirts and backed with Mississippi State fabric. We again went with a maroon color thread, but the design was a little different. We selected a pantograph with guitars and music notes for the longarm quilting to make this quilt a little bit different from the high school one. These quilts were very fun to work on.
Floral Fireworks Quilt (Spring 2010)
This quilt was brought to me by a woman who had a hard time finding someone with a frame large enough to do this quilt. The finished quilt was a massive extra large king measuring over 134" X 134". The fabrics were very energetic and contained a mix of solids and floral prints. We went with a yellow, red, green, and orange thread by King Tut. The design she selected for the longarm quilting was a unique interlocking pantograph called Christofer's Panto made by One Song Needle Arts. It had beautiful little daisy's and curving arches that helped soften all the straight lines in the pieced top. It turned out really lovely.
