Challenge Quilts from the Long-arm Quilting Gallery - Part II.

This is the second part of the serie where you can see and read about the challenge quilts, which North Sea Quilters exhibited in the "Patchwork en Quiltdagen", Rijswijk with the cooperation of Jobina de Boer. The quilts were first shown in Birmingham and it is organized and presented by Beryl Cadman, (Custom Quilting) the European distributor of Gammill® Quilting Machines and Statler Stitcher™ fully computerized quilting system and co-sponsored by Twisted Thread. Scroll down to see the next three quilts and click on the photos to enlarge them.

Leslie Carol Taylor: Peony Pickle
90" x 90"

"The choice of design for this challenge was in order to give myself plenty of scope for quilting. I wanted to make a pickle dish with non-traditional colours, and I love using sateen for quilting.

I first drafted the quilting designs for the different parts of the quilt, then digitized and eventually sewed them, using a Gammill® Optimum Plus with Statler Stitcher™ and the new Creative Studio™ software. I first designed the swirls in the melons, inspired by one of the fabrics I had used for piecing. I then decided I needed something a bit more structured and drew several versions of the peony centre, with various swirls around them. The borders, which partly go into the main body of the quilt, are made up of several different quilting blocks.
The peonies are quilted in a light mauve, whilst the surrounding swirls use a variegated thread. The pickle dish itself is stitched in the ditch using a lime-coloured thread, which gives an interesting pattern on the back of the quilt!!!!"

Leslie Carol Taylor was born in the UK and has been sewing for as long as she can remember. She officially learned to do patchwork by hand in France in the eighties. Whilst living in Japan in the late nineties, she discovered you could also quilt by machine and from then nothing has been able to stop her.
She has been back in the Netherlands since 2001 where she later met Maria Laza and Marybeth Tawfik. Together they founded North Sea Quilters in 2007. Her trip with Marybeth to the EMQE long-arm quilting retreat in Ireland in May 2007 was to become the most expensive holiday ever, as it resulted in the purchase of a Gammill Optimum Plus with Statler Stitcher.
Leslie has been quilting for customers since December 2007. She loves enhancing a treasured object entrusted to her, and turning it into something even more beautiful.
She has a scientific background which helps and inspires her to digitize her own quilting designs, which the Statler stitches out beautifully.
And she has even been known to still sew things by hand...
www.northseaquilters.com

Yvonne McKee: Purple Passion (detail)
90" x 90"

This quilt was designed on EQ6 when I was at the EMQE Retreat in June 2008 in Castletownbere, Co Cork, Ireland. I had intended to do a lot of the quilting freehand, but became enthused by the possibilities of the Statler Stitcher™ programme and proceeded to do most of it using the computer.

Yvonne McKee, 53 years old, owns a quilt shop in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She has been longarm quilting for five years now and currently has a Gammill Optimum® with a Statler Stitcher™ and an Optimum. Her shop is called Quilters Quest. She teaches classes and workshops, as well as providing a quilting service.
www.quiltersquest.co.uk

Sue Philips: Checkmate (detail)
90" x 90"

"The quilt name is Checkmate, which I pieced and machine quilted on a Gammill®Optimum Plus."

Sue Philips is a longarm quilter in Wales, UK, and has been quilting for about five years. In 2008 she took delivery of a Statler Stitcher™ and hopes to offer all sorts of goodies to new and existing customers.
Sue’s company name is School House Quilting and the telephone number is +44 1633 401222.