As a Long Arm quilter, we learn that we must work on all sorts of projects, from the simple to the complex, adding our part, the quilting, that meets the expectations of the customer based on how much they want to spend and value for their money.
One such project is the quilt constructed from pre printed panels.
I had a few of these to work on this week and I thought I would share them with you and how I completed my part.
First of all, you must know your customers expectations. In this case, a panel was used to create a quick project for family members who she did not know very well. This allowed her to give a hand made gift to each of these new additions to her family.
However, not knowing them extremely well, she also did not want to spend the money for custom quilting, opting for pantographs instead.
Now, to my job. For each project I considered the design on the panel, the color scheme and how much of the quilting should show vs. fading into the background to hold the quilt together.
First up was a very pretty and richly printed wildlife print with deer in the forest. A panto covers evenly the surface of the quilt, so it has the potential to take over instead of adding to or becoming part of the piece. In this case I chose to quilt with a sage green thread, close in color to the background sky behind the deer. I also chose a complex pantograph of various leaves, complementing the subject matter of the panel.
Here are the results.
And here is the back, so you can see more of the quilting details.
Next up is a Santa panel.. The panto I used was quilted in a variagated red and gives texture to Santa's beard, even in the red color.
And finally a Snowman panel...this one I used a swirling panto the reminds me of blowing snow.. I like this one the best..
So with a little change up of thread color and design, these wonderful panels can become interesting while keeping the costs in line.
