A Busy Bobbin

I am loving the swirly machine quilting on this one!

/ lifesloosethreads / 6 Comments

I love going over to Kim’s house with a completed quilt top! She is the longarm quilting lady and owner of A Busy Bobbin. I gotta tell you that lady performs magic with just a handful of pixie dust and colored thread on every quilt top she touches.

First, we lay the quilt top over Molly Monster, the name she has given to the smaller of her two longarm quilting machines. Then we play with strands of thread to see which will complement the quilt top when the machine quilting is added. Next we flip through a binder full of quilting patterns for just the right one. The swirly pantograph pattern is called Denise’s Swirls.

It has been a few days since I picked up the finished quilt and I’ve almost got the binding sewed on. Once I sew the patch on the back, I’m ready to hand it over. This one is going to charity. Hope it makes a lot of money. I’m calling this quilt “Midnight in Mimi’s Garden.” It is being donated to The Village Learning Center’s gala in November. The theme this year is “Midnight Masquerade.” I think the quilt name fits the occasion!

Latest quilt top finished!

/ lifesloosethreads / 4 Comments

Every year I make a quilt for The Village Learning Center’s gala which occurs in early November. Among other endeavors, they run an awesome day center for adults with special needs that my daughter, Mimi, attends. I try and make them something each year I’ve never done before … either with color, design or pattern.

When I saw this quilt top made up at last year’s International Quilt Festival, I thought it would be perfect … eye-catching and a little wacky! Certainly not for everyone but I really liked it. Surely someone would love it … and 10 hours of quilt lessons to the person that purchases the quilt!

The quilt show booth offered a kit and I was hooked. The pattern is called “Urban Cabin” and is by Atkinson Designs. The directions were great and it sewed up nicely and fast!

Visually, it is stunning the way Kaffe Fassett’s fabric (purchased in a collection of 2-1/2″ strips, we call them “jelly rolls,” with the kit) pops like a bag of microwave popcorn in the microwave. And it was the first time I’d worked with so much black, so there you go.

I’m also using a Kaffe Fassett fabric for the binding.

And now that a few yards of quilt backing fabric is purchased, I’ll have it professionalled quilted in a couple of weeks by my favorite longarm quilting lady, Kim Norton, of A Busy Bobbin!

Her bobbin is busy!

/ lifesloosethreads / 2 Comments


A couple of years ago I decided to kick my quilts up a bunch of notches. I started bringing all my quilt tops to the fabulous Kim Norton, of A Busy Bobbin (www.abusybobbin.com). To say she is JUST awesome is an understatement.

In the past, I tried hand quilting. It takes a long time and I wasn’t very good at it. Blame it on being a lefty! I tried doing my own machine quilting. My results were nice enough, but with limited time, I wasn’t cranking out many quilts each year with the added work.

In the past, I’d inspected the details on many lovely quilts at various quilt shows, but didn’t think any of my quilts could look that good. When my friend Angela raved about Kim, I decided to give her a try. The rest is history!

The most recent quilt Kim quilted for me is for our grandbaby-boy-to-be. He is now the size of a cabbage, as that is the thing to do these days … compare unborn babes to fruits and veggies. We’ll meet him in person in early May!

I love bringing my quilt tops to Kim. It’s a blast watching her creative juices flow as the unfinished quilt top is laid over her longarm machine. We talk about the quilt’s vision and then Kim does this little dance with spools of thread that she takes down from her spool rack. She lays strands across the quilt top to see what will work best. We chose a variegated thread. Although I have several awesome custom quilted designs from Kim, lots of the quilts use an all-over, or pantograph pattern. For the little cabbage’s quilt, we flipped through a book and picked out one called “Animal Crackers” from Urban Elementz with zoo animals all over it. I love the results. What do you think?