I'm really a very new quilter, I finished a hand quilt a bit over 2 years ago, then started a machine pieced quilt, but only really took off when I moved to the US and took a beginning quilting class last January. I have mostly made lap size quilts and wall hangings and have quilted them myself.
At the beginning of September I put together my first queen size top and that was where I stalled, I feared basting it and whilst I kept working on designs for the quilting, I knew that what I really wanted to do on it wasn't going to happen in the next decade. The top has largish print grapevine fabric on 3 different background colours, I added in plain green and purple but with a slight sparkle. The pattern goes under many names, I've seen it called trellis, "I spy with a twist" (when set on point) and others that I forget. It's very simple, alternate blocks are plain with snowball corners and the other blocks are a square with strips round the edge, partially pieced, to get rotational symmetry, when you put it all together it looks like you have weaving with one colour vertically and the other horizontally, with spaces for a focus fabric to be displayed.
On retreat in January, there was someone there who has a computer guided long arm, she said she had an offer to buy a certain number of designs for a good price and wanted our opinions from a long list. Amongst them there was a grape vine! Well that decided it for me, I'd pretty much decided that if I was going to get it finished anytime in the near future, it was going to have to go to a longarmer, but didn't really want to shell out for custom quilting, but didn't want either a clashing theme or just something neutral.
I got the quilt back today! I am THRILLED, I really feels as if I didn't pay enough, when I think about the steps she has to go through, even if she can just press a button for each row, I know it's still a good few hours work, plus her overheads and she went the extra mile for me, as I'd had a shrinkage issue with the backing so there was barely enough, I gave her license to sacrifice some of the borders, but she attached strips so she had enough to attach it and quilt right to the edge of the top without issue.
Now I have to get off my backside and do the binding, the quilt is for our guest bed and we have guest arriving on Friday!
Anne