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.

Modified custom quilting

Agnes is currently my queen of scraps.  I've mentioned before that she could open up several fabric stores with the amount of fabrics she has at home.  She has been quilting for years and has worked her way through her stash to where she's now trying to use up bits and pieces....lots of them!  So she's putting out a lot of scrappy tops right now.  I normally would have chosen to do an E2E on this quilt, but Agnes is picky about designs being centered in areas....not something that pantos tend to do.  So I designed a larger scale custom design that I didn't have to mark or measure...just bounce off of points...so all the open areas look the same - custom - yet wasn't so fantastically time consuming for me or expensive for her.  It worked :)

Custom feathers

 

 

A custom quilted job for Agnes. 

I often forget about the idea of quilting over the top of blocks like an E2E...not quilting within the pieced design.  It worked really well this time, I think it is so pretty and Agnes was very happy with it.   

Tie quilt

 

Ties all the way, the ties are actually made out of real ties.  Customer's husband had all these stored in the garage....now they are on a quilt.  I have to say that the quilting really made this come alive.