Friday 20 September 2019

Free Motion Quilting (and the Peacock Party)

Thank you for all your feed back on my last post about how long it takes to hand quilt a quilt.  It's always interesting to hear other people's thoughts. I have replied to everyone that I could.  If you didn't get an email from me, it's because you're a no reply blogger.  Here's a link to Bonnie Hunter's guide to fixing this issue.  I highly recommend reading it and changing your settings, because then we can communicate!

Anyway, I did promise to show you the two quilts I'd had free motion quilted (FMQ) by a long armer.

First up is my Home and Away quilt.


This quilt was designed by Wendy Williams from Material Obsession in Sydney.  I made it in a block of the month program back in 2014.




I loved stitching all the wool felt applique by hand, but once it was finished I just couldn't figure out how I would hand quilt it myself.  So I asked Sue Burnett from Busy Bee in Wellington to do stippling around all the felt applique, and do some basic designs in the pieced blocks. I didn't want the quilting going over the wool felt.





I love how it looks, and was very pleased that I chose to get it quilted by a professional.


The second quilt that I had free motion quilted by a long armer was my recently finished Portraits quilt.  I was under a bit of time pressure with this one. Anna Maria Horner had asked me to make it to promote her tour to New Zealand, and I knew it would take me months to hand quilt it.

Sorry that I haven't got a better photo yet.  I'm working on it.

So, I asked Donna Ward from Hamilton if she would machine quilt it for me.   Donna did a fantastic job on it and I'm really pleased with the finished quilt. She quilted different designs to suit different blocks in the quilt.






I love all the swirls that Donna quilted.  The finished quilt is beautiful and I really am going to take some better photos as soon as possible. 

So, there is a place for machine quilting, but my primary quilting method is hand quilting, and that's what I enjoy doing the most.


How it's time for the Peacock Party.  What have you been working on this week?  Feel free to link up a recent blog post below.



You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
Click here to enter

12 comments:

Nancy @ Grace and Peace Quilting said...

Both are beautifully quilted!!!

Gretchen Weaver said...

Beautiful quilts! I also don't like quilting over the hand work. She did a beautiful job with Home & Away which is my favorite of the two, love that yellow background! Portraits is also lovely but Home & Away just catches my eye more. Happy Stitching!

Cathy said...

Wow! Two beauties! The Anna Maria Horner fabrics are a lot of fun.

For the love of geese said...

Thank you for sharing the closeup quilting. Being a newbie longarmer I am always critiquing my own work. But after seeing your closeup photos I guess I am doing better than I thought. Am I showing as a no reply?

Myra @ Busy Hands Quilts said...

Such beautiful quilts, all!

Susan said...

Wow! Awesome quilt - thanks for the detail shots!

Rochelle aka Bella Quilts said...

Those two are wonderful quilts and the machine quilting does look good. I love that the wool applique has not been quilted over as would be done by some LAQs when doing edge to edge quilting. Time factors can be what pushes one to a LAQ. Thank you for sharing them in such detail.

Alycia~Quiltygirl said...

Those are amazing quilts!! THey are truly a work of art!

Chopin - A Passionate Quilter said...

Bautiful quilt and quilting!

Evy en Petra said...

Both quilts are beautiful, I especially Love the Home and Away. Love the quilt, love your color choices in it and love the way it has been quilted.

I think there is a time and a place for all, for hand-, machine- and longarm quilting. Yes, hand quilting is definitely what I love to do. But... having a quilt shop (and providing Longarm service) kind of makes my time rather limited. LOL

So I always like to see some beautiful quilts that have been -Long Armed-. The thing I always look for is if the quilting in them hasn't "taken over" the quilt. In my opinion it is the beautiful work of the maker of the applique top that has to shine, nog the longarm quilting. So your Home and Away quilt is a winner in both ways!

Greets,
Evy ( sorry for my bad English, I'm Dutch :) )

Andree G. Faubert said...

Hi Wendy, these FMQ quilts are lovely! If you feel like it, please consider linking up to Free Motion Mavericks. We'd love to have you join the party!

Jill said...

Gorgeous quilt! You deserve an award. The wool work is amazing. I agree with Evy that the longarmer should accent the quilt and not outshine it. This was accomplished. It looks great on the bed!