Sampler Snapshot

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

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

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

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

Camouflage

When I first unfolded this quilt from one of my return clients, I knew that I would enjoy quilting it! All of the solid pieces of fabric allowed my long-arm quilting to add to the design of the quilt, instead of getting lost in busy, patterned fabrics.

In order to stay with the hunting and outdoor aspects of this quilt, I chose a meandered long-arm quilting design to create a mock-camouflage look.

   

By Kathryn

Swirls & Feathers

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

Into The West

This quilt has a very special place in my heart. I made it for my boyfriend, Ben, as a gift for his college graduation. I wanted to create a quilt that told the story of the first months of our relationship.

I’m probably a bit partial to our story, because it’s ours, but it has some really fun aspects that made a story quilt a great gift.

We met in college at a 16-month Associate of Liberal Arts program named Rivendell Sanctuary. The name of the school was inspired by the home of the elves, Rivendell, in J.R.R. Tolkien’s, The Lord Of The Rings. When deciding on fabrics for the quilt, it was only fitting that I included portions of a map of Middle Earth.

 

For 5 weeks of our time at Rivendell (during Ben’s third semester, and my fourth and final semester) our classes traveled to Italy to study the Fine Arts. Although Ben and I had been on the same small campus at Rivendell for about 9 months prior to the trip, our paths had rarely crossed so we didn’t really know each other beyond our names. In Assisi, Italy, we went on what I like to call an “accidental” pizza date, and realized that we enjoyed talking with each other and spending time together. Naturally, I decided to include some fabric with famous locations in Italy (many of which we visited) in this quilt.

When we returned from Italy I graduated from the Rivendell program, and Ben had one semester remaining. I transferred to a different college to work on completing my Bachelor’s degree. Ben came to see me each week at my new college, and one of our first homework date spots was the library on the campus of my school. After a few of those homework dates in the library, Ben asked me to date him and I said yes! I added some book fabric in the quilt to highlight that time of our relationship.

  

I wanted to add a few hobbies and likes that Ben has to fill out my selection of specialty fabrics for the quilt. Ben plays guitar (quite well, if I do say so myself), and he regularly wears plaid shirts, so I thought that some fabrics along those lines would work well with my color scheme and story quilt concept.

Along with the special fabrics that I chose, I added some extra blues and tans to complete my fabric choices!

  

From the pictures you can see the overall long-arm quilting design that I chose for the quilt. I wanted to keep it simple so as not to distract from the fabric designs. In the border I did a different design to mix it up and give me a chance to play around with multiple designs!

  

I put a label on the back with some details about the quilt (I blurred the picture). I chose the quilt name because at the end of Tolkien’s “The Lord Of The Rings,” the elves (who live at Rivendell) sail away from Middle Earth, into the west. Ben and his classmates are leaving their time of education at Rivendell and heading off into the west, so to speak, to live their lives.

Needless to say, I had some sentimental moments while planning, creating, and long-arm quilting this gift for Ben. I loved seeing the picture that I had in my mind take shape as I added the special fabrics and created the layout. And, as always, I enjoyed tying it all together with the long-arm quilting!

The months of our relationship that this quilt captures had some amazing and unique adventures in them, and I am excited to see what adventures the future months have for Ben and I!

By Kathryn

 

Bright Colors & Bubbles

This lap-sized quilt made from a jelly roll was packed full of bright colors!

When deciding what design to long-arm quilt I chose a variation of the basic loop, bubbles, to complement the circle patterns that were in so many of the fabric designs. I also chose a light thread color to contrast with the darker fabric shades so that the quilting would show up on the majority of the finished quilt.

In addition to the fun, bright colors on the quilt top, the backing fabric for this quilt was a beautiful blue fabric! Blue is one of my favorite colors, and I love how this fabric highlights the bright fabrics in the quilt top and shows off the long-arm quilting so well.

This quilt was fun, simple, and colorful! I had so much fun adding the bubbles to it!

By Kathryn

Christmas – A Little Late!

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:

Before Custom Quilting

After Custom Quilting

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

Excited for Summer!

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