THERE AND BACK AGAIN

Hello, and welcome! My name is Alex. My (current) day job is as a computer engineer – I’m good with math, software, and hardware. But I also love fabric and making quilts. I'd like to tell you a little bit about myself, and all the choices I’ve made that have led me to this fascinating world of longarm quilting.

Two of my favorite things to do are create and read. If any of you are Tolkien fans, like I am, I hope you don't mind my borrowing Bilbo's book title. 

I’ve been making things as long as I can remember: Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs, Legos, drawing, painting, telling stories, designing webpages, developing software, and working with fiber. My first memories with fiber are my (maternal) Grandmother trying to teach me to knit (I’m still not very good – much prefer crocheting). My Aunt Debbie is a wonderful seamstress and made me the most beautiful dresses when I was in the first grade. She is my sewing inspiration. Later I found out that my (paternal) Great-Grandmother made quilts from old jeans (I’m restoring one of her quilts for my cousin). Fiber, sewing, and quilting are part of my DNA.

I started sewing sometime in grade school, making dresses for my dolls. Then in sixth grade Home Economics I fell in love with sewing and started to make things like pillowcases and easy clothing items. By high school I was sewing quite a few of my own clothes. I also took a professional seamstress course and learned to make things without a pattern.

When I was pregnant with my daughter, I made all her baby clothes and my first quilt; the baby quilt was a pattern from my mom’s 1979 copy of the Reader’s Digest Complete Guide to Needlework. We’ve since lost the quilt I made; this picture is from the book. After that I took up needlework and cross stitch for a year or two; then work and life (and another baby) kept me too busy for much else.

Fast forward ten years (and baby number four, boy number three) and I found quilting again. Keep in mind, this was in the late 90s and early aughts, before the Modern Quilt Guild was formed, and longarm quilters were a rare breed. I joined the local guild and for a few years reveled in patchwork, hand quilting, and fabric.  Then all the kiddos were in school, and I was back to work, it was the height of the booming internet and all things (dot) com. Work was exciting, challenging, and consuming. I barely had time to keep up with every new development and all the things going on with my family. Needless to say, we had major family changes, and I ended up giving all my fabric away to my (soon to be ex) mother-in-law, so that it didn’t just sit in my dusty sewing room and deteriorate.

I tried to pick up quilts again around 2012 when I was working on my MBA, but didn’t get very far (and probably took on much more than I could handle … still learning to pace things out). Then in 2019 my dad got sick and all but my youngest are out doing their own things (he is starting college. I took a few months off of work to take care of him, and in between I’m cleaning out one of my closets and find not one, but six Lone Star “quilt in a day” tops in varying (mostly just cut strips) stages of development. I decide to work on these six quilts.

And something happened. I became addicted to making quilts. I got online and find that the quilting world has completely changed over the last 20 years. There is now a worldwide organization specifically dedicated to “Modern Quilting” (thank goodness). I get on YouTube and find Jenny Doan, Angela Walters, Karen Brown, and so many others. I join the Modern Quilt Guild and my local guild and work on my Lone Stars. Then I start working on other quilts for my (now extended) family. My extra bedroom becomes my quilting room. I machine quilt my first queen sized quilt on my Singer, and decide that is really hard. I start looking for longarm services and find that one of my local quilt shops rented time on their Gammill Elevate. I decide to give it a try.

If I thought I was addicted to making quilt tops, I was completely taken by surprise to find that I was even more completely obsessed with longarm quilting, and to be honest, customized quilting. I love a good edge-to-edge pattern and the texture it gives to a pieced quilt. I love even more taking a special quilt top and creating harmonious custom quilting to perfectly complement the piecing. I couldn’t make quilt tops fast enough to satisfy my quilting addiction, so I bought a Gammill Statler and started quilting for you. Let me help you create a beautiful quilt. From Edge-to-edge to full custom, we can do this.