Morning!

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving!

I wanted to share a friend's (also a customer) quilt that I finished yesterday.  Many of you know Jim Gatling -- artist, quilter (the King of Scrappy quilts), decorator, wedding planner, teacher...well, the list goes on and on!  Jim has been on a mission to have his 100++ quilt tops quilted and just between Eddie Landreth (Arkansas Man Quilter) and myself, I'd say we are still well under 50 tops being completed!

Initially, Jim invited Eddie, Melissa (Eddie's wife) and me to his home in Morrilton one Saturday (about two years or so ago) to discuss/plan (and divide) his first group of tops.  We left with a total of 22 quilt tops!

Now, Jim brings them in groups of 4-5 tops and says "here you go"to one or the both of us!  Each bag has its own instructions for quilting designs, thread color, etc.  Fortunately for us, Jim is open to our opinions for quilting ideas which was important for the one I'm sharing!

The one pictured here had these directions:

"Amish Crazy Quilt, over the top quilting, for me to hang at house, use Black Thread Bobbin & Top"

First I had to clarify what "over the top quilting" meant!  Over the top quilting to Jim meant ignore any blocks and do something different in spaces all over the top - not "do an all over design i.e. pantograph"!  After getting that settled, the next step was having him rethink the black thread!  Luckily he agreed to a dark gray called Storm by Glide!  Last but not least was sharing my vision for the quilting design vs his!  Maybe I wore him down, but he finally gave the okay for a "whatever you think"!

So what do you think?  I felt that we should continue with the Amish theme, so I went with traditional Amish quilting motifs, i.e. split Log Cabin motifs of feathers and rails, and opposing border designs.  Jim said "I love this" when I sent it to him so I think we did good!!

Until next time,
Happy quilting!