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.