Taking a Sabbatical

For fifteen years I have been running my long arm quilting business Addicted To Quilts - meeting and working with many wonderful quilters.

After a great deal of thought I will be taking a sabbatical.  This is exciting and a little bit scary.  I plan to work on my own quilts and to spend time with my family - maybe even do more blog posts......... 

Of course I will be completing all exiting bookings which will take me into next year.  If you have a booking, please contact me in the usual way.

I plan to start up my business again in 2020.  I really love my work and can't imagine not coming back to it.  At the same time, I am looking forward to taking a break and having time for other things as well.

If you would like to be included on an email list for me to notify you when I open bookings again, please visit my web site - Addicted To Quilts for a link to my email address.

Thank you to my customers who I have been lucky to meet and quilt for, your support is greatly appreciated.

Oh, and here is the obligatory picture of a quilt :)

Checkered Stars

This is a quilt I completed a few years back.  The top was completed in 2011.  I started quilting it in 2012, got around 80% of it done, and then had to take it off the machine to work on customer’s quilts.  It took another two years before it got loaded again so get the last bit done.

I quilted it heavily with a combination of straight and curved lines and of course feathers. 

I entered it into Showcase - which is the main show for my state of Victoria in 2015, and was thrilled that it won first in its category.

Bronwyn's Block Swap

This is Bronwyn's Block Swap Quilt.  You can see my version using the same blocks here. 

There were ten members of the block swap group, so it was an interesting number of blocks to have to incorporate into a quilt.  I like how Bronwyn offset her blocks into three rows leaving interesting space in between for quilting.

I wanted to emphasise the long lines of the quilt so quilted straight lines down the length of the quilt gong behind the blocks.

A plain fabric on the back shows the quilting beautifully.

Daisy Basket

This is Bronwyn's design which she calls Emma's Basket.  The templates are available through Victorian Textiles.

Bronwyn wanted the baskets to pop so didn't want allover quilting.

I continuous curved the white in the basket and quilted a daisy with two leaves above each basket.

Around the basked I quilted an intense allover daisy and leaf design.  I varied the sizes of the daisies to give interest.

To define the border I quilted a larger daisy design which I echoed and then quilted straight lines approximately half an inch apart.

The quilting shows really well on the white back.

Daisy Border

This is Barbara's gorgeous Dresden Plate quilt made with 1930s fabrics. She decided to have a random daisy design quilted in the border.

Barbara chose a background fill of small curls around the plates, which made the sashing and applique pop.

Daisy Allover

This pretty quilt belongs to Rae, and looks lovely with an allover daisy pattern.

Double Wedding Ring in Liberty Fabric

This quilt was made by Sue in gorgeous Liberty fabrics.

I quilted this quilt about a year ago, but forgot I had taken photos.  I found them late last year. 

Sue asked for more modern quilting and showed me some photos for inspiration.  But as the sizes of the rings on her quilt were different from the photos I needed to work out a design that worked best for her quilt.

I took a number of photos while the quilt was on the machine as I was trying to work out how I wanted to quilt the plain fabric in the centre of the rings and in the melons.  What I didn’t like I unpicked.

This photo show how I originally thought I would place the arcs inside the ring.  I didn’t like this arrangement as I felt the centre area was too small for the diagonal straight lines I planned to quilt.  I was also playing with the melons.  I didn’t like this design either as it looked like teeth to me.  So I unpicked all of this.

This photos shows that I made the centre area larger, but now I felt it was boring and too big.  I unpicked this. I had settled on the melon design as can be seen in this picture.

This photos shows the final design for the centre that I really liked. I felt the row of pebbles gave it more interest that the design in the previous photo.  The design in the melon was an early reject which was later unpicked. 

You can see in this photo the two potential designs side by side.  I know it comes down to preferences, but I much preferred the one on the left.

When I was quilting the diagonal straight lines in the centre I would start from the middle and work out to one side, then go back and do the other side.  This allowed me to get the lines at the correct angle if I did the longer lines first.  I also alternated the direction of the lines to create more interest.

Sue brought me a plain backing fabric so the quilting shows beautifully.