Today I was able to finish this shirt quilt and move on to the next quilt in the queue. I love how the Baptist Fans turned out. My customer wanted to see the various fabrics quilted down evenly, since there were old pajama fabrics mixed in with wool fabrics. The seams were questionable and she wanted them to be camouflaged. I think this pantograph really got the job done.

To top it all off, it was one of those rare days when the bobbin and the top thread harmoniously meshed together all the way to the very end of the quilt. I was pretty surprised to see this: 

This pretty quilt is up next, and I'm trying to decide which pantograph to use on it. I'd like to stay with a not-so-dense pattern. And I'd like to not have too much going on with the quilting design. I'm going to be using a shimmery variegated Madiera Polyneon thread:

Here are the pantograph contenders:  

"Simply"

"Drunken Feathers"

"Bountiful Feathers"

"Bird of Paradise"

I love "Dazzle" and would use it in a heartbeat. But the design seems rather large for the size of this quilt:

"Dazzle"

Do any of these inspire you?

After 2 weeks of Christmas vacation in sunny So. Cal., and 1 full week in bed from a terrible cold, I was relieved to start a new quilting year with a simple unassuming homespun shirt quilt. I chose to do the Continuous Baptist Fan pantograph from Lorien Quilting because it's traditional and would tie together all of the different blocks. 

I chose to use Aurifil 28 wt. #2315 cotton on top, which is a tan color. And in the bobbin I'm using Magna-Quilt 40 wt. #24525 cotton, which is called "Khaki". Since the threads are both heavy I decided to use a 4.5 needle and set my SPI to 9. This has been a perfect combination so far and I'm very happy with it.

On shirt quilts it's sometimes necessary to stitch around obstacles. This quilt has a pocket with a snap attached to it. I couldn't SID around it because the seams were too thick and my hopping foot would not get any closer than about 1/4". So I drew a line on the pantograph which outlined where I wanted to start and stop the design to allow for the flap:

And, again on the top of the flap I needed to draw a new line when I advanced the quilt to the next row:

Embroidered sections are different, though. On this area I chose to continue the pantograph through the embroidered design:

It has taken me 2 days to get halfway through this small lap-sized quilt. But I have to remember that if I force myself to accomplish too much this week, there is a good chance I'll be back in bed again with a relapse of this terrible cold. I've heard that this cold is a really persistent one, and that it is no respecter of persons. 

But I'm happy to be back doing what I love doing: quilting and blogging.

The year 2011 was full of wonderful quilts. And wonderful quilt students. I was even able to finish up 2 UFOs of my own.

Although a few slipped through the cracks, here is an end-of-the-year gallery of the customer quilts I had the pleasure of working on in 2011:

Full Custom Quilting:

Semi-Custom Quilting:

Freehand All-over Quilting:

Pantograph Quilting:

In 2011 I had the pleasure of teaching 4 women how to make their first quilt:

And 4 young women how to use a longarm quilting machine:

Four student quilts were finished in my studio:

And finally, 2 of my own creations were finished:

What a year! I've exhausted myself just looking at all of the work that's been accomplished in the past 365 days. In the grand scheme of things, it's just a fraction of what most professional quilters seem to accomplish. Especially now that computer quilting has changed the pace of finishing quilts. 

But here in the middle of absolutely nowhere, my little longarm machine quilting business has been thriving enough to keep me busy. And blessed.

Have a great New Year!

: )