Edge 2 Edge Quilts

 A sampler quilt by Irene....something our local fabric shop did with a block-a-month.  Used a Double Rose Vine panto pattern to go with all the florals in the fabrics

 

Another fun little quilt by Ruby's little granddaughter. The fabrics are quite mature on this quilt and I wanted something not very juvenile, yet with movement.  I went with "Water World" panto.  I really almost wish they didn't name the pantograph patterns.  It's not unusual for someone to choose against a design just because of the name, but the design would be perfect.  In this case the design doesn't look like it has anything to do with water.  It looks very cool. 



5 quilts

 

A great sampler by Carla....who took Louise's class.  I love to custom quilt samplers, really makes me think :)

A cool southwestern quilt by Lori. 

You really nave to look at the back to get the full impact of the quilting.

Another beautiful quilt by Devona. 

 

 

A new customer who has moved into our neighborhood, Micah.  She is going to use this for her bedspread and below are the matching pillow sham tops to go with the quilt.

A custom quilt for Agnes.

A pile of edge-to-edge

 

A whole cloth by Idonna with a puzzle panto.

 

Another whole cloth by Connie, with an all over of loops and hearts.

 

 

This was a charity quilt that Louise pieced and asked me if I would quilt...to go towards a charity auction of a lady in town facing large medical bills.

 

oops, upside down.  A great scrappy quilt by Diane, with loops and swirls all over.

 

This probably shouldn't be here, because it's not really an edge to edge.  It's a whole cloth but I outlined all of the elements on the fabric, which took quite awhile.  Should have charged more :)    I love the fabric!

These last two are again by young girls who are taking a sewing class by Devona.  Eliza and Hanna came and picked out their own quilting designs....above was "Chantilly Lace" and below "Mozart". 

 



Some of my quilts

 

I lied, this actually isn't really my quilt....I did quilt it, but my daughter's mother-in-law - Michelle - pieced the top and sent it to me to quilt it.  Since it's for my daughter it kind of feels like my quilt :)  There are two of these, for twin beds, and also a crib quilt that matches.  They hope to start taking in foster children soon, and these quilts will be for the beds for these future children.  It's going to be a very happy room!

 

I always take along some kind of hand work when we go on car road trips, sometimes it's applique. That's where these elephants came from.  I have quite a collection of quilt squares that I never get around to doing anything with, one week I just pulled some fabric out, made a few baby quilts and took them over to the hospital gift shop to see if they would sell.  Just learned this morning that two of them did!  I also had a darling sunbonnet sue quilt that I guess I neglected to take a photo of (darn!) 

 

These last two quilts are just fun baby quilts from randomly textured fabric squares.  I really like the look of these types of quilts, something about them just makes me happy :)  I'll probably run these over to the hospital soon and see if my luck holds again. 

Animal print edge - to - edge

 

Can you tell this is for a guy?  A great man quilt! 

Carry picked out a neat panto pattern that kind of mimicked the zebra stripes...it went very well with the fabric on the quilt.

E2E baby quilts

Zigzag quilt

 

Another fun quilt by Lori.  She made my life easy by just saying to follow the zigzag design.  I decided to do a curved line on each side of the seam instead of a plain SID, just to make it a bit more interesting.   

 

A curvy leaf vine in one of the borders gave a nice contrast to the straighter feel of the rest of the quilting. 

Next generation quilters

 

Ruby brought in two little quilts that her granddaughters made in a local sewing class taught by Devona.  I've seen several of these come in so far....these little girls are really enjoying the art of cutting fabric apart just to sew it back together.  The quilting bug continues into the next generation!!

Modern Quilt

 

A modern quilt by Kim.  She wanted fast and simple and requested a large scale meander.  Don't do those often, but I can do it :)

Quilt with hearts

 

A nicely done quilt by Misty.  She wanted an over swirl design.  So I used "Waterworld" which turned out perfect.  She loved it.

Lone Star Quilt

 

A beautiful Lone Star Quilt sent to me by Colleen. She's sent me two of these in the past couple of months, both for grandchildren's weddings.  I've decided this is my favorite way to quilt these...very happy with the look and for a quilt with a lot of custom quilting, it went surprisingly fast, comparatively speaking :) 

Christmas quilt

 

A very nicely done sampler quilt out of Christmas fabrics by Connie.  It's unusual for me to do a panto pattern on one of these, it certainly is a valid option.  She choose a holly leaves and berries design, which looks really nice. 

T-shirt Quilt

 

I don't get very many of these in, which surprises me -- they seem to be very popular.  Anyway, this one is very special, it's going to a retiring principal of a special needs school here in our area.  All the T-shirts in the quilt are from different activities the school has been involved in over the past some-odd years.  The outside border has a popcorn print on the fabric to represent the popcorn machine the school purchased and everyone got to have on special days.  Four of the squares were subdivided into quarters already, so I decided to quilt all the blocks in 4ths so they all would be uniform. 

Backing issues

Here are some very pretty quilts by a good customer....I don't think she reads my blog and I won't put her name here because I'm going to use these quilts to stress a point.  Always bring a longarm quilter a quilt backing that is AT LEAST 2 inches larger than the top on all 4 sides -- bigger is even better.  This customer usually does do that, for some reason she brought backings on 2 of these quilts that were not big enough...just barely the size of the top.  

I ended up doing this border design on this quilt, piano keys to the edge, so that she could trim the border in to fix the edges without messing up the quilting design, since the backing actually was shorter than the top in places, because of the way the quilt will pull in as it is quilted.  It's just dang hard to deal with out the extra fabric on the back.

I was really nervous on this one, too, the backing was minkee and the exact size of the top.  I didn't know how it was going to come out by the time I got to the bottom of the quilt.  So I left the outside borders of all the blocks plain in case the outside edges had to be trimmed in.  If I was okay at the end I planned to go back and put something into the borders, but as feared, I came up short at the bottom, since I left it unquilted she was able to go to the store and buy a little more fabric and add it to the one edge of the backing to bring it out far enough to keep the quilt even on top. 

This quilt was fine, as you can see the red backing on all the sides. 

There are a few things that really make what I do difficult, and the backs not being big enough is one of them.   

Graduation quilt

Here's another graduation quilt...for a boy.  The customer asked that it be done lower end custom with simple quilting....so that's what I tried to do. 

 

 

Whenever I know a quilt is going to a guy I'm always really careful about what designs I choose to quilt.  It seems that the majority of designs out there are more feminine in nature...I need to start a new section in my "idea book" with just design ideas for fellows. 

The vast majority of my customers live fairly close to me....but I am slowly developing a few long-distance quilting relationships which is quite fun.  (This quilt came from Washington state).  It takes a little more coordination with mailing things back and forth and making sure I understand how they want their quilt done, but so far it's been a really good experience for me - and I think (hope) it's been the same for the customers.  They keep coming back, so I think that's a good sign.  

4 quilts

All four of these quilts came in from Sheri, so I decided to put them all here at the same time, since I am trying to catch up on all my paperwork.  This first one is a high school graduation gift for a nephew.  She wanted to make sure it came across as masculine yet keep it low end in the quilting price.

 

Another graduation gift, for a girl this time.  I've been amazed at how many graduation quilts I've had come in this year....it's been a first for me to have such a graduation rush!  Love it :)

 Isn't this a pretty quilt.  Sheri requested a swirly background fill. 

 Back

And a baby quilt...panel.  Sheri's mom made this one and sent it to me through her.  She just wanted simple outlining...again trying to keep it inexpensive.  Had to put a little bit more here and there to fill in areas that were too large to leave unquilted.   I'm beginning to get a number of quilts in from outside of our area that people are sending through family and friends who I've quilted for in the past.  I so appreciate my customers recommending me to people they know who also quilt - that's the best sort of advertising.