Most of the quilts brought in by our longarm machine renters are exactly what you’d expect: pieced beauties ready for quilting. But sometimes renters bring in simple whole cloth quilts with no piecing at all. Now these quilts aren’t what some might consider a “true whole cloth quilt” because the fabrics aren’t solid colors and the quilting isn’t intricate. But we’re not the quilt police here. So because they all quilted single lengths of fabric, I’m gonna call them whole cloth quilts. 😁 Let’s take a look at a few whole cloth quilts recently quilted by our APQS longarm machine renters!

Learning a New Skill

These first three longarm renters all brought in plain pieces of fabric for their rental certification classes. All of our rental certification students get to quilt their own quilt during class. But when you’re learning a new skill, it's important to have room to make mistakes. That’s why I like to tell my students to bring a quilt their dog will look good on! :)

Beth and Cherri both brought in leafy prints for their first time using the longarm machines. Both of their fabrics are so busy you can hardly see the quilting! Any wobbles and bobbles while tracing the pantographs are lost in the fabrics. But they still left the shop with big smiles and lovely lap quilts they can pull out every fall! And in case you’re wondering, Beth quilted her autumn leaves quilt with the Seamless paper pantograph and Cherri quilted her mocha brown leaves quilt with the A Little Bit This paper pantograph.

Fabric to Pretty to Cut

This fabric Shawn used is perfect for practicing free motion quilting! The fabric is called Free Motion Fantasy by Amanda Murphy (you can learn more about it here). Amanda designed it with lots of common quilting motifs like feathers, cross-hatching, and swirls. Her idea was you could trace the prints on the fabric to gain more confidence in your free motion quilting. Of course, it helps that it’s fabulous, bright, and very very pink!

The fabric caught Shawn’s eye while she was in the shop and she decided to quilt it for her certification class. Because it was her first time using a longarm machine, she didn’t feel quite ready for free motion quilting. Instead she used the Seamless paper pantograph. There’s still a few yards of this fabric in the shop if you’d like to practice your own free motion quilting skills. Check it out here.

For this final quilt Judy wasn’t planning to practice new skills or learn how to use the longarm machine. She just loved the fabric too much to cut it! This lap quilt was made for a new baby on the way. Mom chose some beautiful organic cotton fabrics she wanted made into a baby quilt. You can see the pieced quilts Judy made for her here. This was the first time either of us played with organic cotton, and we were both impressed with how soft it was! Judy loved it so much she decided to make a whole cloth quilt with microfleece on the back. This baby is going to have lots of soft and cuddly quilts! Judy wanted to bring the fabric’s woodland theme into the quilting and longarm quilted a leafy paper pantograph called Lime Tree.

Didn't all of these ladies do fabulous with their longarm quilting? I think it's important to remind myself sometimes that a quilt doesn't have to be super fancy to be beautiful and loved! Sometimes a simple whole cloth is all you need. If you'd like more information on our longarm rental program in Louisville, KY, click here or give us a call at 502-718-7148.