It's a good day when a lovely lady wins a nice big Best of Show ribbon! It's truly a good day when that quilt was a round robin, and in the commercially quilted category! In some respects it's kind of like a miracle. Round robins don't generally get that far in a quilt show, or restrictions keep them off the big ribbon list.
Whoo Hoo!
So you get to see the quilting, below is a "post quilting" picture on my green sofa. At about 3PM the sun is just perfect for quilting pictures.
Cheryl
It has been brought to my attention that a cat is sitting on a quilt. Yes, Buster Valentine fell asleep on a quilt, slid off the stool with the quilt and woke with a big yawn on the floor. Silly boy.
It's my quilt. I snuggle up with it + a cat or two. It is a wonderful quilt with loads of nice work on it. I haven't named it yet, it will have the words "round robin" in the title. It was a really different sort of group work. The top was fully constructed by me, stabilized with stitch-in-the-ditch quilting, and I quilted the center. It went off to quilters around the country and each person quilted a border.
Now I have an idea about how much fun it is to pick up your quilt from a quilter! It felt like Christmas to open the box and see my pretty.
Please don't panic, customer quilts don't leave the workroom where no cats are allowed to go.
Back to work.......... Cheryl
Truly, some fabrics are just to pretty to cut up. Holly's Hydrangea fabric is one of them. The clusters of blooms are wonderful. Using the fabric as it comes off the bolt is a bit tricky. 
In simple words, it has no central focal point. The focal point needs to found and centered. The small picture is the fabric as it comes off the bolt. There are 3 1/2 large blooms across the width. The quilt above centers one of the large blooms to create a pleasant grouping. The pattern includes twin and queen quilt sizes. Email me for pattern information and pricing (WC-01). Wouldn't this look great in a guest room, or an entry way?
I took the quilt to guild show and tell after market and was asked how long it took to make. Let me answer it here, 10 hours minus the hand finishing. Let's break that down. About an hour was devoted to finding the "sweet spot" on the yardage. 45 minutes to cut the panel (first time to do this takes time) and the booth requirements must be met! Borders usually take me 1/2 hour ( add 10 minutes for the stripe- gotta keep it straight). When the tops are finished I usually assemble the binding, 20 minutes. Marking the scallops was quick, less than 10 minutes. The remainder of the time was quilting.
Quilting was the bulk of time with this one. I wanted the quilt to have a trapunto effect but didn't have the time to do the real thing. So I layered a polyester batting on top of a cotton. The cotton will shrink just a bit after washing and the poly will not.
The flower blooms are "lightly" quilted and outlined. The filler around them had to be tight, to give the blooms lift. Holly hated my choice - oh well. I used it for 2 reasons. 1. it's quick. 2. it's easy to get around the stems. It's not the best choice but the market clock was ticking and it had to get finished.
I want to go back and try an idea on the inner border........ more on that later.
The outer border was quilted to look like a large scale stripe/floral print. Crosshatching is one of the hardest things to do on a longarm. Picture trying to fill an "Etch-a-Sketch" screen with crosshatching. The longarm works kind of the same way, horizontal and vertical movements that combine to make diagonals. There are no feed dogs to guide the stitches, you must use a ruler along the hopping foot to stitch a straight line.
I hope you enjoyed a peek at this project.
Back to the workroom, Cheryl
Holly can't possibly sew every quilt she designs and keep up with business. She found me about 4 years ago. How she did that I won't ever figure out. I was just starting out with my longarm business. She was down close to the wire for the Pittsburgh Market and needed the "Candy Machine" quilt finished.
Holly is constantly designing quilts from her fabric line. This is one from a market or two back, I can't keep track.
Four years later, another market, and this fun daisy quilt was one of the projects I whipped up for her. I just love piano key borders.
Back to the Workroom....
Cheryl
Marie is a good woman and a wonderful piecer. 
Her Quilts are always a joy for me to quilt. She can do scrappy better and anyone I know! Marie also allows me time to think a bit about the quilting.
Busy fabrics tend to hide the quilting. I find that geometric shapes and lines pull an element of crisp into the work. The border is one of my favorites to quilt. It reminds me of a jewelery setting surrounding a lovely gem.
This quilt won First Place and Best Machine Work, in the Sussex County Fair. This was in a Professional Category too. Marie teaches piecing at http://www.piecefulchoices.com/ in Vernon, NJ.
Back to the workroom.......
Cheryl
So what sort of quilt do I as a quilter put together for my guild boutique?
I was given a bit of pink fabric, so why not a whole-cloth? I have a wonderful new stencil, and no time to decide what to piece! I can give those interested in my stencil table a demonstration too.
Fabric is loaded, 
Stencil and pounce pad in hand. I marked the whole 40" length.
Click on the picture to get a better look. The half image near the leader is sewn, and the marks are still visible!
I rolled the table under the area for the photo. Of course you would move it off to the side to stitch. It is also helpful to load quilts 10"-12" to the left of center to increase the working area without removing the table.
Now for a peek after the chalk has been removed.
Some little one will hopefully love this quilt.
I really do love to make quilts for little ones! If my kids decide to read this- please don't give me the opportunity to make them for a good Long time! I am OK with the random quilt for a kid I happen upon.
