Susan Corbett Custom Machine Quilting

It took me weeks to quilt this version of Nearly Insane, a huge bed quilt hand pieced by . The pattern, out of print, is known for tiny patches, and Alice upped the ante by making the quilt larger. No beginner, Alice made the blocks in only 10 months. Here’s a clip of quilting one block with an itty bitty center and several photos of my favorite other blocks.
I quilted it lightly, or tried to, because it’s traditional, it’s big and I wanted to let the blocks have center stage.
A video of the quilting process is up on my YouTube channel, — and it includes an important lesson at the end on fabric grain lines and applying borders to bias-edge setting triangles.
This fearless quilting client inspires me. 🏆💡

Kim West hand appliquéd this wall quilt over the past 25 years and upon her triumphant finish, she brought it to me to quilt. I applaud Kim’s bravery in attempting this challenging pattern as much as its completion. Look at the second photo. Wow! I used clear thread to outline-quilt the cats and flora, and then had a great time doing the background with a combination meander. It’s much simpler than it appears: circles, swirls, echo quilting and a few leaves. And the backgrounds and borders were treated as part of the background for simplicity’s sake. It works because of the low contrast in color between background, frame and border. Although it looks like I did trapunto quilting, the puff is created by use of high-loft Quilters Dream wool batting, just one layer. I wonder how many people started but have not finished this pattern.

This quilt will tug at your heart strings and your grandmother’s apron strings. Doesn’t it take you back? I custom quilted it lightly for client Cynthia Prewitt. Various 3D pockets are open and ready to hold whatever she might want to keep in them. I want to crawl onto my grandmother’s lap and drink from her coffee cup. She was my first client back in high school; she actually wore a dress I made for her to church.

This quilt was ideal for a part custom, part overall design scheme, with a flower meander on the pieced bars and a flower/circle background fill. A video of the quilting is up on my YouTube channel. This quilt was made by Mary Ann Thompson.

My favorite freehand overall quilting design is this feathery meander, this time on a huge carpenter’s star bed quilt. I’m using blue on top and light gray in the bobbin, which can be seen in the second photo of the backing. I’m sewing on the binding for client Elaine Thomas while the quilt is still on the frame to speed production of this gift quilt.

Part of custom quilting is tackling the difficult or tedious aspects like navigating around 3D appliqué, ie. ruched roses — as if quilting a Baltimore album isn’t challenging enough. Watch the process on my YouTube channel . This is one of two being assembled by and started by her mother. Carmen’s sister, one of the recipients, chose flowers, feathers and other elements for the freehand quilting.

This one-patch tumbler quilt said diagonal lines to me, connecting points along the way. I quilted triangles, squares, a diamond and dimensional quilting to add texture and a lot of visual interest. My client hand pieced these 1 1/4”-tall tumblers, including fussy-cut red cats to break up all the blue. The end result is a stunning custom throw unlike any other.

Two quilts I quilted are on display at the Plano, Texas, quilt show, and they won ribbons. Both were in the North Texas Quilt Festival last weekend. Kathy Sibley’s bed quilt won a red ribbon this time, and Charles Maxwell’s black hole quilt, his original design, won honorable mention and an award of merit for excellence in quilt making. Congratulations to both!

Here’s a roundup of client quilts on display at the North Texas Quilt Festival now in Irving, Texas.
1. Carolyn Bowden’s itty bitty log cabin original design, taking the blue ribbon, 2. Peggy Sympson’s Tradewinds wool appliqué, 1st place, 3. Kathy Sibley, 1st place for this large machine appliquéd Floral Extravaganza, 4. Marie Mote’s Judy Niemeyer star, 1st place, 5. and 6. Cindy Hardgrove, hand appliqué and hand embroidery. These won 2nd place ribbons and a special award for that exquisite handwork, 7. Judy O’Connell’s tiny 9-patches for 2nd place, as well as 8. a Celtic knot with maximal motifs and quilting, 9. Charles Maxwell’s black hole, an original design, 10. Peggy Sympson, Heirloom Miniatures in Red and Green appliqué, 11. and Carolyn Bowden’s kaleidoscope wall quilt. There were three more, by Cynthia Prewitt, Elaine Graisher and Peggy Sympson, but I somehow didn’t photograph them. (Mercury is retrograde now.)

This is Enchanted, a rustic quilt celebrating Southwest pueblo pottery design. I started making blocks, using up scraps, inventing wildly and having fun. It’s been in the works for the past year and I quilted it this month after putting it on my own waiting list — harder to do than you’d think. Check out the video on my YouTube channel for a full explanation.