Long Arm Quilting – Page 3 – Sew Bittersweet Designs

Fireflies Do. Good Stitches Quilt

2 Comments / 2016 Finishes, Charity, Do.Good Stitches, free motion quilting, Innova, Long Arm Quilting, Spike / By Melissa Dunworth

Last month I quilted my last quilt for the Trust Circle of Do. Good Stitches. Don’t worry, I am still part of Do. Good Stitches, but with a wonderful friend, Jessica (@plumpatchwork) I am starting a new circle to benefit military children that have to be hospitalized when a parent is away on deployment or duty assignment. This is a cause extremely close to my heart, as you can imagine and I am excited to get started. Before I could move on with the new group I needed to finish my final quilt for my old circle. This quilt was based on my block tutorial for the Fireflies block. This is the second quilt I have helped make using this block tutorial I love all of the secondary patterns at are created with this block. Check out my first quilt created with the pattern here.

I asked the ladies to use a Kona White background with Aquas and Reds. If you didn’t know, this is one of my favorite color combinations.

Here is a close up of the custom quilting job that I did on it. I love the feathers!

This was a super fun quilt to do and it was so quick too! All quilts should turn out this successfully when made of blocks from 8 different quilters! I know this quilt will bring much joy and love to a child in the foster care system.

What have you been working on? I’ve been prepping two quilts for shows and ordering supplies to get started on the customer quilts I have waiting for me. Don’t forget that I want to quilt for you so please feel free to leave a comment here or email me at any time! Melissa (at) sewbittersweetdesigns (dot) com!

Quilts for Pulse – South Sound Modern Quilt Guild

2 Comments / Charity, Custom Quilting, Customer Quilt, Edge to Edge Quilting, free motion quilting, Innova, Long Arm Quilting, SSMQG / By Melissa Dunworth

The Orlando Modern Quilt Guild put out a call for Quilts for Pulse – heart quilts. My local guild, South Sound Modern Quilt Guild (SSMQG) answered the call. I donated 20 blocks to our guild and there were so many blocks donated that two quilt tops were pieced by our wonderful guild mate Teri. I volunteered to quilt one of the quilts. I feel so blessed to have gotten to work on these quilts.

I decided to do a simple all over heart design on this quilt. Partially because the more quilting is done, the heavier the quilt becomes and as these quilts were heading to Florida, I thought a heavier quilt might not be as cuddly, heavier = hotter. I also wanted to do a simple heart design that kept with the heart/love theme.

This is before I trimmed the quilt, that is a Kona White background but getting the color balance just right on this photograph has proven to be a bit of a challenge for me. Some day I will invest in editing software…today is not that day.

I love how filled with love this quilt it. It was my first time ever quilting with Hobbs 80/20 batting and the first time Spike encountered polyester batting. It went really well. I used Superior Threads Omni on top and So Fine on the bottom, the perfect pairing of threads.

Have you been able to sew anything for Quilts for Pulse or Quilts for Peace?

Photographing for Shows

2 Comments / Custom Quilting, Innova, Long Arm Quilting, Quick Curve Ruler, Spike / By Melissa Dunworth

The past few years I have been entering my quilts into shows, I try to enter quilts that are my own designs, but sometimes I find a pattern that inspires me, I buy it and I make it. Every now and then it is truly a beautiful thing to find that someone else has done all the quilting math for you! That is the case with the Metro Scope Quilt that I have been working on, pattern by Sew Kind of Wonderful.

Photographing quilts for juried shows is always a challenge, they want the entire quilt in the frame, and no fingers holding them. With no one home to help me, photographing large entries is quite a challenge.

In come my design walls! I haul my design walls outside, preferably on an overcast day because too much sun will wash out my quilts and not really show off their beauty.

Because this quilt is so long – 72″ – I had to prop it up so it would hang off my porch. The design walls are pinned together (my design walls are foam insulation from Lowes that are covered with batting) and propped up against my three porch chairs. Then I pin my quilt through the back into the foam. I try not to get the pins, but you can see them at the top there.

Here is a look at the picture I submitted to the quilt show after it was edited:

You can see that it shows pretty much just the quilt and the lighting has perfectly highlighted the quilting. Lucky for me this show does not require that a quilt be 100% finished to enter. I have purchased a binding fabric and just need to stop procrastinating.

I hope everyone is having a lovely Monday! I have been back at Zentangling again so expect to see some pictures of those soon!

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When everything goes wrong…you quilt!

3 Comments / Custom Quilting, Customer Quilt, Innova, Long Arm Quilting, Spike / By Melissa Dunworth

I have to say last week was ROUGH! On Thursday I went to my blog, like I do most days after I post to see if there were any comments I needed to reply to and my blog was GONE! I started calling technical support and basically got the runaround for most of the day. Finally learning that my blog had been hacked, and they weren’t going to help me fix it and until it was fixed, I was going to be down. In stepped Michele from Quilting Gallery, she is such a wonderful friend a true blessing, she took a peek around and calmed me down by re-assuring me that all of my data was still there. As I started to research people to hire to fix this problem my Uncle and Aunt reached out and offered to help me. A full week later and a major overhaul/upgrade. I am back up and running. I have no idea how many hours my Uncle worked on to get me back up, but I imagine it was quite a lot. I am so thankful for my community!

Since I am dead useless with web stuff, I decided I needed to occupy my mind and lucky for me, my mom sent the perfect project, another fun baby quilt! I was going to do a simple all over design but the artist in me came out to play and what was supposed to be simple ended up as a custom all over design.

Before I show a close up of the quilting, you just have to see the back that my mom designed. It is a giant fishbowl! I love it, it looks like the little fish are just swimming around and having a grand old time!

I did two designs, for this quilt, you can see the texture that was created on the back, here is a close up of the center of the quilt:

I’m very pleased with how this quilt turned out and my mom was pleased with the fast turn around time. I had planned to ship this on Tuesday, but my poor Anne is sick with a fever again. Poor thing just can’t seem to catch a break, hopefully she will be back on her feet tomorrow and I can get it in the post tomorrow.

Have a wonderful and happy Thursday!

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Custom Quilting – Metro Scope Quilt

3 Comments / Custom Quilting, free motion quilting, Innova, Long Arm Quilting, Quick Curve Ruler, Spike / By Melissa Dunworth

Back in June I was getting antsy about my husband leaving with the army again so I decided I needed a project to work on that didn’t require any brain power on my part – interpret that as I didn’t want to have to do any quilty math – which designing my own patterns require. Sometimes it is nice to have all the math and figuring out done for you. This quilt was one that I started working on with my wonderful friends, Vicki of Orchid Owl Quilts and Shanna of Fiber of All Sorts, being two of my closest friends, they knew what I was going through and gave me the go ahead to move forward without them. I will likely make a second quilt with them at a later date.

This is the Metro Scope pattern using the Quick Curve Ruler, ruler and pattern by Sew Kind of Wonderful

After I finished Linelle’s quilt I decided to pull this puppy out and get it quilted!

I decided to use this quilt to showcase my skills with ruler work and custom quilting.

Today I am going to work on the sashing between the blocks. I cannot wait to get this quilt off the frame and photograph it properly. These pictures were all taken with my iPhone. I swear the quilt looks way better in person. Also, the last three were taken with my phone at night.

If you like what you see in my custom quilting please contact me, I want to quilt for you and bring your quilt to life in a way that fits with your artistic vision! If you like my quilting but want something a little less dense, I do more basic designs too!

Have a wonderful and happy Hump Day!

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