9.20.2016

Star Quilt - Custom Machine Quilting by Natalia Bonner

Last year I custom machine quilted this beautiful star quilt for Donna, she loved it. At the same time her daughter-in-law started making the same quilt, but it took her a bit longer to finish making her quilt. When she finally finished her quilt she sent it to me and asked me to custom machine quilt it for her. They wanted something like Donna's quilt, but really gave me permission to quilt it how I saw fit. 

Well, if you've been reading my blog long, you know that I have a hard time quilting two quilts exactly the same. I feel like I lose my creativity when I quilt two quilts exactly the same. So, of course, this version has some really fun custom machine quilting, but it way different from Donna's version.



When I loaded the quilt on the long-arm I honestly wasn't quite sure how I was going to quilt this quilt. I knew that I wanted to really play in that large negative space around the outside of the quilt, but I just wasn't sure what would look best. So I got my favorite marking pen, the blue Mark-B-Gone and a ruler and just started drawling lines, lines that played well off of the piecing. After I had a few lines drawn inspiration really struck and I knew exactly how I was going to machine quilt this fun quilt.

I used a straight ruler and quilted a lot of straight lines. Because the corners were pretty big spaces I knew that I needed to quilt them a little bit different from the sides of the quilt.
These new setting squares came to life with my machine quilting so I quilted some point to point lines and then filled them in with figure 8's. I teach how-to quilt this type of pattern in my new Craftsy class; Free-Motion Motifs for Classic Blocks and also in my book; Next Steps in Machine Quilting.
To help tie the whole quilt together I chose to quilt half of the large white squares with a similar point to point design and figure 8's and the other half of the block with some straight lines. Then in each of the print parallelograms I machine quilted a fun swirl pattern. I love how this really helped to soften up this crisp quilt.

I shared a couple of pictures of this fun quilt while I was machine quilting it. I love the way the natural lighting hits the machine quilting while the quilts are on my long-arm, it really shows off the texture.


Thanks for letting me machine quilt this beautiful quilt Donna & Krystelle!

I used Quilters Dream Batting and So Fine! thread by Superior Threads.

Click here for more information about having me machine quilt for you. 

My machine quilting is done on a Gammill 22" Long-Arm Quilting Machine.

For more machine quilting tips and tricks check out my books; Beginner's Guide to Free-Motion Quilting Next Steps in Machine Quilting and Visual Guide to Machine Quilting Feathers.

I'm a Craftsy instructor, check out my class; Free-Motion Motifs for Classic Blocks.

10 comments:

  1. Love the textures you have created! I would love this pattern, is it available somewhere????

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  2. I actually don't like how this quilt turned out. The quilting is amazing, and incredibly intricate, but it is so busy it looks to me as if that makes the white background blocks become the primary blocks. They pop off the quilt, and the beautiful stars are completely lost into the background. It may just be the camera angle on the screen shot,but it is too much quilting for me. It has overwhelmed the original design.

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    1. Hi there! I appreciate your comment and feedback. I'd love to hear how you would have custom machine quilted this quilt.

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    2. Great response, Natalia! Very mature and positive. XO

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  3. Another inspirational beauty! Love all the lines on this one. Do you use a ruler? Must take forever! XO

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  4. I love how you put the secondary design in the background. Very nice!

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  5. Rather than overwhelm the original design, I think it really enhances the somewhat simple pattern. With all of the negative space in the quilt, special quilting was needed to move the quilt from great to spectacular. jes1776--If you look at the second picture of the quilt, I find the piecing is quite obvious and the stars really shine. JMHO... grin.

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  6. Wow, fabululous,can´t stop to look it.

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  7. I am fortunate to have a quilt done by Natalia that has a lot of white and her quilting makes it fabulous. If you could be up close with Natalia's work, it is amazing!

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