I met Frances because my mom, while shopping at The Pine Needle Quilt Shop in Lake Oswego, was admiring Frances’s beautiful Star quilt that she had just finished and needed it quilted, thanks mom!  You can see pictures below it’s red, yellow and black.  Frances is fairly new to quilting but you would never know it, her piecing is spot on!  When she called and said she had another quilt for me I was thrilled!!  We met at The Pine Needle and I really couldn’t believe one how big it was and how beautiful.  We talked about doing something more custom.  I have seen this quilted by several people and they always do something very geometric and modern in each block which looks cool but wasn’t what Frances wanted.  She was thinking more along the lines of free motion.  Eek, I think of myself as ok with free motion, my style is more organic free flow feather and pebbles.  But to be honest I have never done an all over free motion design with one style!  As always I was up for the challenge.  I came home, immediately loaded the quilt and just went for it.  I was so nervous and unsure of myself but like everything I do I just dive in and I don’t stop until I’m done.  I quickly realized that doing free motion swirls on a 84×96 quilt is like running a marathon!  I got in a rhythm and before I knew it the swirls were just pouring out of me onto the fabric.  Then I hit the center, eek there are about 24, 6″ blocks with very raised seams which are trouble for the hopping foot to go over.  The blocks were so small and intricate I didn’t want to plow over them with swirls, so I decided to stitch in the ditch the blocks!  It’s exhausting and takes forever but I did it and  I loved it!  As with every quilt I am wracked with nerves hoping my customer likes what I have done and something about free motion is so personal because it came from me not from my work on a computer.  Today was the big reveal, we met at the Pine Needle and the reaction was priceless, she loved it!!!!  The best compliment I could even dream of was when Frances said “I am so glad I met you”!  Well ditto for me Frances!!!!