I am so excited to show you this cool quilt I got the opportunity to custom quilt recently.

In January, Judith Quinn Garnett contacted me about finishing a quilt for her.  She had designed and pieced this 42 x 49″ top, and had a specific idea for how she wanted it machine quilted.  As soon as I saw her idea, I knew it was perfect for this quilt.

I was personally experimenting with creating secondary patterns with quilting, and this project explored that idea without becoming overcomplicated (a problem I sometimes deal with when exploring design possibilities.)  I toyed with some alternate quilting plans, but honestly just couldn’t put Judith’s original idea aside because it just worked and seemed the right choice.  Honestly, I have a hard time taking credit for much of anything with this project, because Judith had a vision and all I did was follow her plan.

I chose a variegated green King Tut Cotton Thread and stitched in the ditch around the green piecing.   It blends well with the colors on the top, and makes the quilting pattern really stand out on the back side of the quilt.

To make sure that my lines were straight I used a ruler throughout the quilting of this project.  This worked well for the inside blocks of the quilt and stitching in the ditch around the green piecing, but I had to improvise a bit to get the pattern correct on the outside edges since it cut the star motif in half.  I quickly figured out a way to get the lines and angles correct so that I could get this finished up for Judith.

Some clients like to do their own bindings, and some ask for me to provide a binding service for their project.  For this project, Judith prepared the binding for me using a continuous bias binding method and I attached it and machine finished it for her.  It was nice having a continuous strip and not having to deal with the extra fabric of seams that can sometimes be bulky.  I would definitely use this method if I were doing a scalloped binding, because it would have a nice stretch for getting in and around those curves and points.  It also worked well for this project.

When I machine finish a binding, I like to have fun with the decorative stitches on my Pfaff domestic sewing machine.  For this project, this “plus” stitch repeated the piecing pattern and just seemed like the right way to finish it.

I’m so glad I had the opportunity to finish this for Judith, and by following her design instincts, I think we ended up with a great finished product.  Being able to stitch out her vision helped me rethink the way I approach some projects, and has me itching to try my hand at more designs like this in the future.

And as a final look, I offer this full sized photo of the backside.  I love the fabric Judith chose!