The Long Arm of Quilting

This is the most beautiful quilt ever. Of course I say that about each quilt I make, but this one truly is spectacular. Because I was making it for the bed that I share with John, I wanted to make it wide and long. Most queen quilts at 90" wide, so I wanted this one to be 100" wide. John prefers a long quilt, so the length is 114". That is a lot of fabric. I worked very hard piecing the blocks for this quilt. Since this quilt is so large and so pretty, I deciced to splurge and have a long-arm quilter work on this quilt. Normally I do my own quilting, which is straight-line and utilitarian. My machine-quilting holds the 3 layers together and reinforces the geometric lines of the quilt. Just recently I've been experimenting with free-motion quilting, but that's a skill that has to be practiced quite a bit before tackling a full-size quilt

The quilt we currently have on our bed, a white and blue log cabin, is a quilt that I had machine-quilted with an all-over pattern. That technique would not have been good enough for this Jinny Beyer "Around the World" quilt. In February 2007 I met Downers Grove quilter Judy Teska when she and I shared a 90-minute timeslot at a quilting-themed women's retreat held by the Downders Grove Congregrational Church. What a charming woman and what a talented quilter! Judy gave me the name of a long-arm quilter, Debbie of Tinley Park. Based on Judy's recommendation, I took my fabulous quilt to Debbie in February. On March 30 I returned to pick it up.

Debbie is truly an artist. She initially asked whether I wanted my blocks/design or her quilting to be dominant. When I asked her if her if the two components could highlight one another, she smiled. She suggested a varigated thread, Nordic Fjord. She worked her magic (although I must point out that she has a heavy workload and the wait time was 4 weeks). I hate to use the word spectacular again, but really it is. The photograph doesn't even begin to hint at the textural richness created by the quilting. The quilting lines are so organic and complementary to the design and the colors. It's really a work of beauty.

I can't wait to create a new quilt top that is somehow Deb-worthy.

If you're thinking this quilt looks suspiciously like the one in the Made Possible by a Grant From... in a March post, you are sort of right. These fabrics are the same, and so is the overall design. However, the first quilt posted has a Mariner's Compass center and corners. This quilt has a simpler center and corners.

Made Possible by a Grant From....

My productivity level can be pretty high at times. It's amazing what one can do when devoting 6 to 8 hours a day on one project. But here's the real secret to my productivity: my husband John.

I don't do housework. I don't shop. I don't pay the bills. I don't do the laundry. I do cook but not often. This household pattern began when John retired in 1993 (ok, it probably even started before John retired). And it continues. Any quilt I give is as much from John as it is from me. Any workshop I do is possible because John even helps me load my car. Any commission I complete is because John carries the workload of the house.

Here's a great example: in running off copies of directions for my current workshop Blocks from the Underground Railroad at the Lawndale Christian Church, I not only ran through all of our white paper but even used all of our pastel paper as well. John needed to make copies for something he's doing for the Brookfield Jazz Society. When he saw there was no paper, he cheerfully announced he needed to stop at Office Max for paper on the way home from visiting his father in the hospital and doing the weekly shopping.

I love that John loves the studio as much as I do. I catch him going upstairs just to check things out. He painted the ceiling and all the trim, he configured and installed the closet hardware, he hung the full-length mirror. He finished the trim on the CD shelves and then painted them so that I could finally get all my CD's out of storage. I couldn't figure out what to do with some of the things I wanted to hang like my Imari needlepoint, the Seurat print, and a Baltimore Album quilt print from my sister. He not only figured out where to hang them, he then did it! Even the fabulous color of the walls (Koala Bear from Home Depot) was his idea - I would have gone much mintier if left to my own devices and that would have been so wrong) is something I must give him credit for.

John's devotion to all things jazz and NFL equals mine to quilting. My goal is to be as supportive of his interests as he is to mine. In May we are celebrating our 25th Wedding Anniversary. I love John. A lot. I'm a lucky girl.