free motion quilting – Sew Bittersweet Designs

Elephants Go A Marching

4 Comments / Custom Quilting, Customer Quilt, free motion quilting, Innova, Long Arm Quilting, Spike / By Melissa Dunworth

Woohoo! I’ve got another finish under my belt for 2018! I finished the quilt that I’m calling “Elephants Go A Marching.” If you know the real name, tell me in the comments and feel free to link to the pattern!

I decided to do a simple all over meander on this quilt. Sometimes, simple really is better. especially for a baby quilt. This baby will be born in the Spring and lightly quilted quilts are always better in the warmer months!

You can kind of see the meander in the picture above, but here is a close up.

For this quilt, I decided to take Spike off the stitch regulator and I forgot how much I like working without it. So much more control! The background in the quilt is actually white, but again, we’ve had a few days of cloudy weather so it’s hard to get bright pictures.

Photo quality issues aside, isn’t this quilt just so darling!

I hope you all have a wonderful Monday and a great week!!

What’s on Spike?

3 Comments / Custom Quilting, Customer Quilt, free motion quilting, Innova, Long Arm Quilting, Spike, What's on Spike / By Melissa Dunworth

I decided to start a new feature on my blog called “What’s on Spike?” I will show you what I’m work on. The only thing you all need to know is that I don’t always know the names of the patterns that my customers use, so unless I direct you to a link for the pattern, the names I will say are just what I call them for my own record keeping.

I’m calling this darling baby quilt “Elephants Go A Marching.” I’ve no idea what the real name is, sorry!

Spiked Pinwheels

6 Comments / Custom Quilting, free motion quilting, Innova, Long Arm Quilting, quilt, quilting, quilts, Sew BitterSweet Designs Patterns, Spike / By Melissa Dunworth

Hello! I am still alive, I promise. I’ve been working on my Master’s degree the last 8 months and have not had much time for quilting. That being said, I still do have patterns coming out! My latest one, called Spiked Pinwheels, is in Issue 21 of Modern Quilts Unlimited!

This quilt is a monochromatic design made in American Made Brand solids, which are so awesome to work with! It’s a new take on the classic pinwheel design using half rectangle triangles. I quilted this beauty on Spike with double batting, so it is thick and luxurious.

So the next time you are at the bookstore make sure you pick up Issue 21, some of my favorite designers are in this issue, including Vicki of Orchid Owl Quilts.

Keep on quilting and I will keep on studying!

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Customer Quilt – Shanna’s Postage Stamp Quilt

2 Comments / Custom Quilting, Customer Quilt, Edge to Edge Quilting, Fiber of All Sorts, free motion quilting, Innova, Spike / By Melissa Dunworth

Sorry I have been so absent lately, family life needs to always come first and Anne is my number one concern. I only have a few minutes to type this while she is busy with a task and I just finished up my latest customer quilt. To see my most recent finishes check out my Facebook Page or my Instagram Account!

Have you ever felt like you’ve been given an extremely special gift? That’s how I felt last month when Shanna from Fiber of All Sorts asked me to quilt her very first quilt top that she made! I felt so incredibly honored and at the same time scared! It had to be perfect because this it this quilt that made her a quilter!

I decided it needed curvy orange peels, and LOTS of them!

Doesn’t the texture just look completely fantastic? For some reason my camera is struggling to take good pictures from far away, I will have my tech guy (also known as my dad) look at it at Christmas, but in the meantime here is a somewhat blurry picture that does not do this quilt any justice at all!

The texture on the back looks pretty darn amazing too!

I just love those curvy orange peels!

Remember I do custom quilting work, I am now offering a very limited selection of extra wide backings and my rates start as low as 1.5 cents per square inch for all over edge-to-edge designs. Please keep me in mind for all of your quilting needs. I can accommodate up to king size quilts on my frame!

Custom Quilting – Patio Quilt by Tina

2 Comments / Custom Quilting, Customer Quilt, free motion quilting, Innova, Long Arm Quilting, quilting, Spike / By Melissa Dunworth

Last month I had the privilege of quilting a gorgeous Patio Quilt – pattern can be found here on Happy Zombie’s blog – for my guild mate and friend, Tina. She made a gorgeous boy version of the quilt and we both agreed that it was screaming for some wood grain quilting.

I fell in love with this quilt as I was working on. It really is the perfect quilt for a little boy. One of the additional services that I offer to my customers, at their request, is to trim the quilting and send the extra fabric and batting back to them. Most of us hate getting down and trimming the quilt so I am happy to offer this additional service to my customers for a small fee.

The texture created by the wood grain quilting pattern is absolutely fantastic!

I love how this turned out, I used a cream on top and on the back and it stands out in some spots and recedes beautifully into the quilt in other spots, when working with a quilt that has multiple colors the key is to pick a thread that will go great with the vast majority of it and not pop out too much. The other option is to use a clear invisible thread like Monopoly by Superior threads, then you don’t see the thread at all but the texture that is created by the stitching. Here is a look at the back.

Please keep me in mind for you quilting needs and remember that Christmas is slowly creeping up on us, if you have quilting needs for Christmas, be sure to email me now so that I can get you on my wait list! I definitely want to help make your Christmas gifts come to life!