Friendship quilts really move me. They commemorate events with joy, love or comfort via the hands of many caring people. Such was the case with this quilt, finished in a hurry for a grieving family. It was not lost on me that I was listening to the Sept. 11 ten-year-anniversary... Continue reading

One of the most important factors in quilting on a longarm machine is having enough fabric to attach the whole thing evenly with room for testing stitch tension. That's why I ask customers to make sure they get backing and batting that is 4 inches wider and 4 inches longer... Continue reading

My business model never included making completed quilts for sale. It was always about helping others complete their pieced tops by providing the quilting. So when Rachel wrote trying to find someone to create an entire custom queen-sized wedding quilt for her, I was not going to go there. But... Continue reading

It's so nice to move a long-forgotten quilt top onto the "finished" pile. The whole reason I got a longarm machine in the first place was to put a dent in the teetering stack of unfinished pieced tops that I had amassed over about 15 years. So this little table... Continue reading

Nancy Cook sent her beauutiful Stacked Coin quilt top variation designed by Denyse Schmidt to be quilted. We discussed several options, but her choice turned out to be my favorite pattern: Knotty. I've raved about this design before and it's still the most affordable, classic-yet-modern design out there. Nancy stitched... Continue reading

It's fun to receive two interpretations of the same quilt design to work on. That's what happened when Lauren (top) and Joan (above), a daughter and mother who took a sampler class together at Cool Cottons In Portland, brought me their assembled blocks to be quilted. Each quilt block was... Continue reading

Here in the Pacific Northwest, we love our ecology. And since Earth Day is coming up (April 22), it's a fine time to talk about selvages. I almost always trim selvages off when I'm ready to begin working with fabric. They get in my way and I don't like having... Continue reading

What's more fun than kids' art? Why kids' art made into a quilt, of course. Dana, the mother of almost-5-year-old Emmeline (Emme for short) wrote me to help with a project for Emme's San Francisco preschool. Dana sent me a top pieced with playful fabrics framing abstract masterpieces by students... Continue reading

It just made me feel buoyant, working on this top made by Lee Fulton of Brooklyn. This is Lee's first quilt, made for her daughter. She pieced it from a pattern of Alicia Paulson's called Ollalieberry Ice Cream using a zingy collection of fabrics. When Alicia made it, she stitched... Continue reading

The quilting design you see above is "Knotty," a quilting pantograph (sometimes referred to as an all-over pattern) designed by Gali Design. When I bought it I had no idea how versatile it would turn out to be. Now it's one of my favorites. The design looks nice on solid... Continue reading

For my first blog post, I'm going to reveal that longarm machine quilters are numerous and opinionated. For instance, there is a machine quilters' debate going on about using a bedsheet as backing on a quilt. The YES side says it is the green thing to do and most don't... Continue reading

My name is Gayle Karol. I’ve been making quilts for more than 20 years. I’d love to help you finish yours with my longarm quilting machine, Tillie. Longarm quilting machines can take the place of hand quilting and do in hours what used to take weeks. I guide Tillie by... Continue reading