Quilt As You Go

Back in the mid 1990’s I started quilting and it didn’t take long before I fell in love with machine quilting. I machine quilted for Trish Stuart, who had just made the transition from making patterns to making self-published books. We made a great team! I went to Quilt Market a few times with Trish and meanwhile my friend Penny had started quilting – and Penny does everything GUNG HO!

Penny and I decided to go to spring Quilt Market to help Trish launch her new book “Color Art” in 2002. The first day was a blast but that night in the hotel room Penny was sick. So sick that we had to take her to the hospital – and there she stayed for 3 weeks. It was incredible trauma for us all and for Penny, who is NEVER sick!

Trish made this quilt for Penny and I promised to quilt it for her but I’ve run into difficulty (as have Trish and Penny) over the past years – and with moving, giving the quilt back to her, moving again, getting it back and re-promising to quilt it, I am thrilled to say that Penny’s Quilt is quilted!

I made two videos to go along with it – the first one tells the story of Penny’s Quilt. It’s an important story to three people – me, Penny and Trish. Probably not too interesting to anyone else, but I wanted to make the video. The lighting isn’t good – I’m still learning how to judge lighting.

The second video is me doing the quilting. I use three different stipple techniques on Penny’s Quilt and I show each of them on the video. I just can’t tell you how wonderful it was to give Penny her quilt yesterday. We sat and talked for hours. She lives about 200 miles from me now and we don’t get to see each other much – but distance doesn’t alter friendship and Penny is a lifelong friend, one of my very best friends. She’s into beading now, as well as quilting, and she’s poking through her bead stash looking for a few sparklies to embellish her quilt with.

Here’s Penny’s Quilt Story:

Here’s how I quilted it: