Today I'm sharing Nanette's Stonefields quilt that I quilted for her in January of 2023. This was one of fourteen quilt tops (out of a stack of many more!) that she had originally planned to quilt herself and had been feeling guilty about leaving unfinished -- you know, like quilters do! With health challenges multiplying and the stack of quilts not getting any smaller, she decided to scale back some of that self-imposed pressure by having some of the quilts professionally long arm quilted by me.
Nanette passed away suddenly a week ago, and that got me looking back through photos of her quilts again and thinking about how glad I am to have helped her achieve the satisfaction of seeing and enjoying her gorgeous quilts as finishes.
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| Nanette's 65 x 65 (Modified) Stonefields Quilt with Filigree E2E Quilting |
First things first, let's credit the pattern designer. Stonefields is an original pattern by Australian quilter Susan Smith, which she was commissioned to make by Paramount Studios for a film that was shot in Ireland. I have no idea which film; what I've shared with you is all the info I was able to squeeze out of the World Wide Web! Stonefields is a sampler quilt combining appliqué with EPP (English Paper Piecing) and machine piecing, and Nanette shared that this was the most expensive pattern she ever purchased and that made her feel even more pressure to have a finished quilt to show for what she'd invested in it.
So, I know what some of you are thinking -- edge-to-edge quilting over hand stitched appliqué?! I know, I know. Nanette's original plan was to hand quilt this one, but she realized that she had more quilt tops that "deserved" hand quilting than she would ever be able to complete in her lifetime. Custom machine quilting was outside of her own skill set and beyond her budget, especially considering the number of tops she wanted to finish all at once. And so she sent Stonefields to me, and I recommended the simple loops of the Filigree allover quilting design.
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| That Bunny Rabbit Is My Favorite! |
With this quilt, it was really important that the appliqué and patchwork should be the star of the show and the quilting should just be a supporting element.
