I thought that I'd share with you a few quilts quilted on our APQS longarms by our renters. Erin quilted this top, which incorporates the modern quilting movement's themes of large-scale blocks, use of solid fabrics and negative space. She used a repetitive all-over freehand design in her quilting which keeps the focus on the fabrics in the Ohio Star blocks. Erin is a modern quilter, author, and blogger - please visit her blog at houseonhillroad.com to see her many projects. Charlotte is a big fan of modern quilters like Judi Madsen (who will be teaching a Machine Quilting Camp here at Quilted Joy in March!) and dreams to one day quilt like some of the quilting all stars. To build her skills, she's creating beautiful modern quilts like this one. It has large areas of negative space which she quilted in a looping freehand design. The column of five blocks is offset from the center, another choice frequently seen in modern quilts. Each eight-tipped pinwheel block was fussy-cut either from a print or a strip set. Charlotte quilted each block with concentric circles using one of our design boards. She used a grey thread throughout which blended with all of the fabrics. Anna, who is the niece of Pat (another of our renters), came in from the Cincinnati area for her certification class. Anna has used a different longarm in the past so for her, it was just a matter of orienting to how our APQS machines work. She brought in two quilts, one with a modern flair and one that I would consider contemporary rather than modern. First she quilted from the back of the machine using the Honey Drops pantograph (above). Then she moved to the front of the machine for some fun free motion doodling. Which do you think is the modern quilt? After she finished both quilts, Anna admitted she much preferred the freedom of free motion quilting! If you are in the Louisville, KY area and would like to learn more about modern quilting, the Louisville Modern Quilt Guild meets on the second Sunday of the month at 1 p.m. at The Cozy Quilter. They also have a Facebook page. Visitors and new members are welcome! If you are not local and do not have a modern guild in your area, you can become an individual member of the national Modern Quilt Guild. Their website is themodernquiltguild.com and it is packed with great information about modern quilting! We also carry a number of great books on modern quilting techniques - drop by or give us a call to see if the title you're seeking is in stock!