Happy Customers

There is nothing more satisfying to a small business owner than happy customers. Today was a wonderful day, the weather is nice, my backlog is getting smaller and a new customer came by to pick up her finished quilt.

I had spent a good amount of time, contemplating how best to finish her quilt. We had picked out some patterns that she liked and so I felt I understood her taste in quilting. The quilt was a sampler quilt, something she had created over 12 months, one block at time each class at a local shop. The background fabric of the top was white and the colors in the printed fabrics were purple, pale green and grey. The piecing was impeccable, seams were straight, corners matched, nicely pressed and the quilt top was flat and square.

She had told me she wanted to use modern motifs in the blocks, but to use my judgement and custom quilt it where I saw fit. So....I did. I used the border panto she had selected, an Aztec type continuous stitching pattern that had angles and swirls in it, a great match to the designs in her blocks. The sashing pieces were about 2 inches wide and white, they needed a cool design to set them off. I used a figure 8 which really had a pretty effect in white thread. If you look at the inner border on each block you will see there is a figure eight shape, which was the inspiration for this choice.




Some of the blocks required custom quilting which I love to do. The 8 pointed star block really spoke to me to quilt it with plenty of detail. We had selected a basket weave pattern to be used somewhere on the quilt, and this block was perfect for it in the background area. In addition, the center of the star really need to pop and flow outwards, so I quilted it with an arched pattern in each wedge of the inner star, then a simple pattern in the diamonds of the star itself that mimicked other patterns in the quilt.



I'm pretty sure from Agnes' reaction, this star was her favorite block. The Job's Tears block also employed this same arched pattern in the points of each star and I love the effect of movement it created.


Here are some of the other blocks, which I quilted with custom designed modern patterns.



For the next two blocks, I employed my rulers and some straight line quilting along with some free form fun.


And finally to finish them off, I decided both of these next two blocks needed quilting that would give the illusion of movement.




Here is a shot of the entire quilt just before it went home with the owner, Agnes Dembia of Clifton, NJ. She was thrilled with my work and I have a feeling she will be showing it off to her friends and guild in the near future once its bound. A happy customer is usually a repeat customer and that is the heart of a successful long arm quilting business. I know she will be back with more quilts for me to quilt for her.