I had seen Dawn’s posts on Instagram sharing her Stella by Starlight quilt and thought it was absolutely stunning.  When she contacted me to quilt it I was thrilled!!  Terrified but thrilled.  Her only request was that it be quilted using only Free Motion.  Eek.  Creating digital quilting designs and free motion quilting are like 2 separate art forms.  Both incredibly challenging.  I like the precision and consistency of digital quilting although it is very labor intensive finding the right designs and setting them up so they stitch properly.  Free motion quilting is something I love to do but feel like I have tons to learn and need practice.  Doing mostly edge to edge quilting I don’t get a lot of practice time.  I was very nervous and really perseverated over this quilt for about a month.  Then in my usual style I just went for it.  I had planned a bunch of ideas but of course once I got the quilt on the frame I abandoned most of that and just did what came to me.  Unfortunately the quilting is very hard to see, but maybe that was a good thing, haha.  I did swirls in the black background which I love to do!  For the mini hexagon blocks I did different designs using arc and circle rulers.  The large hexagons were really fun.  I wracked my brain for what to do in the white areas.  I needed something where I could use a ruler and allowed me to move from each space without breaking thread, found it!  I love the design I thought it was unique and really kept with the spinning affect of the blocks.  You can’t see it but I did free motion feathers in the print triangles, I love feathers and so does Dawn!  The hexagon centers were the most terrifying.  I really wanted to break down and do a digital design but once I mustered up the courage I just went for it and did a circular feather design, gulp, did it!!!  Dawn was delighted with the result which is priceless to me and well worth the work!  My pictures don’t do it justice, if you visit Dawn’s website http://www.firstlightdesigns.com you can learn all about how amazing Dawn White is!

Peggy is a new customer and new to quilting, well, this quilt was 8 years in the making but still her first!!  She decided it was going to a Christmas gift for her grandmother this year which meant a very quick turn around.  No problem!  I honestly couldn’t believe this was the first quilt she ever made.  It was all paper pieced!  There wasn’t a trace of paper on the back and every seam was perfectly pressed, she definitely has a future in quilting!  The design I chose is called Chantilly Lace, I thought it would work perfectly keeping with the sweet vintage look of the quilt.  I hope she continues to quilt and I look forward to another opportunity to quilt for her.

Betsy made this tablecloth for her dining room and was referred to me by my customer Frances.  It measured 70×150 and knowing that the quilting scale needed to be dense enough to be able to set a wine glass on without tipping over but not so dense that it wouldn’t drape nicely I suspected it would take days to quilt.  I chose a flower design which worked beautifully with the fabrics.  I was right it took about 4 days to quilt but the end result was so well worth it!  Betsy is such a delight I hope to quilt for her again sometime.

This is the second time I have had the pleasure of quilting for Linda.  The last one was the Moxie Quilt which I did custom quilting.  This was of course another Tula Pink quilt and the fabrics are gorgeous!  I love this design so much, it’s called Water Drops and the texture it brings is just amazing.  Thank you Linda!

Carole contacted me via Instagram about a year ago.  She said she liked my work and wondered if I would quilt for her.  She lives in Florida and travels all around teaching modern quilting classes which is her passion.   She has written a great quilting book you can find on Amazon called Madly Modern Quilts.  I quilted one or two quilts that are in that book.  She is also currently writing a book about Modern Patriotic quilts which I did a few quilts for, one was custom and really cool.  The quilts posted above are some that I did for her recently for her Modern Quilting Charity Guild.  I love all the designs and I really enjoy quilting for Carole and it’s sure fun seeing my work in her books!

Peggy brought this quilt to me over the summer, “no rush” she said “it’s been sitting in her sewing room for over 20 years!”  The quilt is 98×98, she did such a beautiful job with the embroidery.  Many of the blocks were cut in the car while traveling, that might explain some of the challenges I faced quilting it but it was still a work of art.  We agreed this quilt needed organic free motion quilting with no plan, just letting my hands guide me.  I never feel like my free motion is very good so it was a great opportunity to practice.  Peggy is thrilled to finally have this project finally finished and off the to do list.

Another T-shirt quilt from Lana, I think this is the 7th one she has made!  This one is for her friend from her parents t-shirts that were very big Portland Trailblazer fans. I found a design that resembled the Trailblazer logo which turned out super cool!!

I met Sarah at a nail salon in West Linn over the summer.  She heard my mom and I discussing an epic quilt I had just finished hence treating myself to a mani/pedi!  She mentioned she had a T-shirt quilt that she had made for her daughter.  She also mentioned it had some challenges such as sequins, oh and it had t-shirts on both sides!  Eek!  I said I could probably just find a way to stitch around them, no problem.  Luckily I gave her my business card because here she was 4 months later asking me to quilt for her!  When we met she also said that she wanted to put in a little extra flair like a tribute to her heritage.  We chose a Celtic block design that I would insert into one of the blocks somewhere on the quilt.  Little did I know just how much of a custom job this quilt would become.  I put some really cool designs around the sequins blocks and added her Celtic block, the quilting design is called Bordeaux.  I love how it turned out and she was beyond thrilled!

My mom met Tricia at an art workshop a while back, turns out she is also a devoted quilter and takes classes at The Pine Needle Quilt Shop.  I was thrilled when she called and asked me to quilt her X’mas Tree Quilt.  She has always wanted a X’mas quilt and finally made one.  When we met I had all kinds of designs that were mostly sweepy and wintery designs.  She said she wanted a design that was very dense and looked like little ornaments on the trees.  Gingersnap was of course the perfect choice.  I love this quilt so much, the swirls do look like ornaments and the texture is just gorgeous.  Tricia was so happy with it which is all I could ever ask for!!

I am pretty sure anyone reading my blog would know exactly who Pam Raby from @lovedtopieces is.   She basically taught me everything I know about quilting and has been my greatest source of inspiration since the day I met her.  She is an amazing quilter, educator and loved by everyone!  So, when she asked me to quilt this Bear Paw quilt that she will be gifting her neighbor eventually I was thrilled and terrified.  I honestly had no clue how to quilt this one, so many borders, traditional yet contemporary, what to do??  My friend Kay Oft from Mountaintop Quilting suggested using her Bee Balm Block on the Bear Paw blocks to make the center look like a Wholecloth quilt.  Thank god for Kay, it was genius, every Bear Paw block is a beautiful block that meets up perfectly with the next.  The borders were another story.  I kept hearing Pam say “traditional yet still contemporary”.  So for days I searched and planned and finally came up with designs that I thought would look great in the borders and flow together well.  The small inner one I did a double pearl loop.  The next border was a huge achievement for me, it’s a border/corner design that I quilted without having to turn the quilt, let me just say, that’s huge!!  And it worked!  In the outer border triangles I did a super cool point to point swirl that I think just tied it all together giving it a modern touch yet still fit with the traditional aspects of the quilt.  Pam hasn’t seen this yet and I hope she loves it as much as I do.  This was definitely a stretch for me and I am so grateful for Pam!