Some of you may remember the Coming Home quilt top I made, it was my second Sarah Fielke QAL and I was really pleased with how it came out. I finished it in May 2020, mid pandemic!

It’s a pretty big quilt, about 100″ square, I had hand quilted the first Sarah Fielke quilt I made (Down the Rabbit Hole) which is a similar size and it nearly put me off hand-quilting for life!!I decided to send this one to a long arm quilter as it was too big to manage on my domestic sewing machine. For the non-quilters among you a long arm quilting is done on a huge frame with a special sewing machine that moves over the quilt.

Whilst I wanted it machine quilted, I didn’t particularly want an all over design, called a pantograph, I wanted it more custom quilted where the quilting fits with the design. Whilst there are quite a few long arm quilters here in the UK, very few do custom quilting, they just do pantographs which the newer computerised machines do automatically. I rang or messaged quite a few with no success.

I then messaged Harrogate Quilting Studio where the lovely Althea hesitated and then said bring it along and we’ll have a chat. Her quilting studio is in the pretty village of Summerbridge, in Nidderdale, so a nice drive out from Otley.

Of course I made sure I had both the quilt top and some backing fabric when I went a long. Talking of backing fabric, that wasn’t easy either as of course we were in the middle of the pandemic with all the shopping restrictions so I had to buy on line, I needed extra wide fabric too which both limited my choice and meant it was a major purchase, so I didn’t really have the option that if it wasn’t quite right I could stash it and buy some more. I chose some dark blue digitally printed cotton which has like a filigree pattern on the back. It does actually match the darker blue fabric in the front pretty well but on mass looks a bit brighter, I’m sure it’ll settle down in time!

It was fascinating to see how the long arm machine worked, I could see why Althea hesitated! I thought that all the custom quilting was effectively done by moving the machine by hand. However, from what I can see most are now done on computerised machines, a laser is used to draw round the shape, a pattern is selected and the machine automatically fills the shape in with that pattern. I could see the issues my design would have with this.

I decided I would be more than happy with what I would call a partial custom quilting, using different patterns around the medallion borders. I chose one for the triangles in the outer border with piano key quilting at the very edge. The wider border with the houses on has a feather border and then the central design has a lovely swirly pantograph.

Having seen the quality of Altheas work I had no hesitation about leaving my quilt with her. She did ask if it was OK if she left it a few months to get a few more quilt tops under her belt, no problem with me.

And the months went by…I did see her and have a chat when ever it was the Harrogate Quilt show and she was obviously just trying to pluck up the courage to do it. I never doubted her ability to do a wonderful job but last month it crossed my mind that she might be a bit like me, much better with a deadline, particularly with something that you’re a little anxious about and therefore putting off. So I messaged her asking if there was any chance I could have the quilt by the end of August.

It was ready for collection a week later, she admitted that I was right, she needed that gentle push to crack on and do it.

It’s stunning, I’m so pleased with it. Here’s the two outer borders…

This shows the design in the central panel…

If anyone lives within striking distance of Harrogate, I would certainly recommend Althea for long arm quilting.

I’m now just hand stitching the binding down. I found a lovely soft dark blue quilting cotton which I think works beautifully, you can see it in the first photo.

Once I get it all finished, I’ll do some photos of the whole quilt.