Quiltworx Masquerade Step by Step Quilting

Okay, well this blog post isn't going to be a step-by-step quilting blog post 😆 but I will link to the step-by-step video which I believe is pretty awesome.  

YouTube Video

This quilt was made by Monette in Kamloops, BC and the pattern is Masquerade by Quiltworx

But what I do want to share here are some of my design photos and a couple of thoughts about this quilt and Quiltworx quilts in general.  I have been working on a TON of these quilts over the past three years and I've been pretty quiet about it on the internet, as I have been brewing a plan 🤐

The first thing about Quiltworx quilts to note is the fact that they are more often than not made with gorgeous high-quality batik fabrics.  This provides many challenges for longarm quilters, most notably the inherent busyness of the designs.  Here you can see that I began my design in the negative space with this awesome feather design, or can you see it?  this fabric was WAY too busy for me to be doing such an intracte motif.   

So I changed gears and decided to do a swirl feather pebble fill. 

This was going to be a little easier to execute.  I did some more designing and here were some of my ideas, I didn't use all of these ideas but you might get a feeling for how my mind was working. 

I have developed a pretty good formula for how I design and plan out these huge time-consuming quilts.  If you've ever made or quilted one you know exactly what I'm talking about.  I spend anywhere from 40 to 80 hours quilting the larger ones. 

I used this larger feather motif within the quilt, It is a bit of a different density than the rest.  I sometimes like to play with density on these quilts as I believe it adds more texture and I find these quilts to be a little more showy than your usual bed or couch quilt. 

I love this filler design, and I'm happy I decided to use it in this area of negative space.  It really brought the whole thing together in my opinion. 

I used this sort of rope design for the first time on this quilt and I wasn't awesome at it, but I definitely got better as I went along, it always takes practice to master a design.  Plus I didn't really mind a little bit of an organic look, it is free-hand quilting!

Here are a couple photos of the completed quilt.

So what has been my top secret plan for the past three years?  I wanted to become a pro at these quilts to develop a presentation.  Learning to teach takes a lot of time too!  I will be debuting this new presentation and a couple more to the public this year.  If you are joining me in the Caribbean in a week you will be the first to see this presentation!  

I tried to present at Quilt Canada in Toronto but I made a couple of mistakes on my application and didn't get chosen.  But I have started booking for April in 2025!  I am trying to keep this as an in-person presentation as I have found it a much better way to get to know folks in real life not just through the computer screen. 

I am travelling up Highway 97 in British Columbia to Prince George and I would love to make a couple of stops in Kelowna, Kamloops, 100 Mile, or wherever someone wants to host me. 

Here are a couple more of my available presentations.

I hope that I can continue to meet more quilters and spread more information about what I've learned (so far).  If you think I might be a good fit for your show, group, or shop drop me an email and we can get a conversation going.

[email protected]

I am going to post the script that I wrote for the video below.  Thanks so much for reading and I hope to meet you one day soon!

Sam

VIDEO SCRIPT

Here you can see as I stitch-in-the-ditch that I have done a pile of pre-marking on this quilt. I always pre-mark my quilts on a hard surface. There are time stamps on the chapters so if you want to skip to the next part of this video you can use those.
I am going to be doing a simple dot-to-dot design on this quilt and if you've taken my Online Class you will recognize quite a few of these details, I also talk about all of the math involved in this style of border and 7 others. I'm planning a sale in February so if you want you should hop on my email list
https://www.quiltingcurvestudio.com/join-the-email-list
Once I start stitching out the first framework I go back and add a pearl chain detail, my client loves a lot of dense quilting so this design is going to get a little intricate.
These structured borders always take a pile of time and I always try and balance that out with free motion in the negative space of these styles of quilts, this video is not supposed to be a pitch, but I am debuting a presentation on how to quilt these complex paper pieced quilts on a cruise ship with Susan Smith and Bethanne Nemesh, next week. We are sold out but if it all goes to plan I will be offering this presentation to book in-person speaking engagements in the Spring. My email is listed in the description if this sounds like something you might want for your next show or guild programming.
My client Monette really loves feathers so during my planning stage I made sure to have feathers as a small feature throughout the quilt. I love adding feathers to this kind of quilt because they are so organic and can really stretch to fit awkward areas.
Now it's time for me to go back and add the second set of framework to my border and the other details. Again I do cover this pretty extensively in my course.
As a final detail, I added the blunt piano key to this last bit of area on the outside edge.
There is the border complete, this design is reasonably intricate and I think it suits the nature of all the paper piecing that is pretty prominent on these quilts.
I always stitch everything I can in the ditch to make the quilt lay flat and true, you don't need to have the perfect curved ruler to do this, I move along using my favourite straight edge, the Rocket Ruler by Silly Moon Quilt Co. and just go in short little bursts adjusting my ruler as I go.
This fabric was really busy and it's hard to see my filler design here, it's the swirl with a feather on it, I'll add some more footage at the end of the video, as I turned off the camera here so I could concentrate.
I had never done this sort of rope design before, I saw Gaby at GENERANDO BLOQUES. do it on a domestic machine once, I'll link her YouTube channel below, she is a Spanish Creator but you can put English Subtitles on her videos.

https://www.youtube.com/c/GenerandoBloques
Then I saw Bethanne Nemesh demonstrate it on a longarm, so I thought I would give it a go. I always like to try something new to me on every quilt if I can. I think it's always important to keep stretching our comfort zones because that's how we continue to develop our skills. I'll link to Bethanne's video in the description.

https://www.instagram.com/bethanne.whitearbor/reel/C10koOvLyK-/?locale=es_US
I wasn't perfect at the design but I was pretty good by the time I finished up the quilt.
As I move into the center of the quilt I start to echo some of the designs from the border and make sure that I'm stitching everything in the ditch as I go. I don't mark this design anymore but when I first started doing it I would put a little dot inside these triangles to help me make them all look the same.
And just because I thought that doing that rope design on a nice straight border was so easy I decided to do it on a curve too! hahaha.
Finally, I finished this area off with a matchstick design similar to a blunt piano key just to give some definition to the space. I am working left to right on this day, my brain was just not cooperating with me so I gave up and just broke the thread.
This white fabric really gave me an opportunity to add some more obvious feathers for Monette so I outlined my area and added in some framework and a pretty feather motif I didn't get too dense here as I sometimes like to play with density on these fancy quilts to add more interest.
After changing the thread colour I completed these spikes with some dot-to-dot quilting and a half feather like in the border. Then I move on to the seemingly endless flying geese and Stitching them all in the ditch.
I do add a couple lines around these flying geese but that's all the detail I decided to add to this section.
Continuing towards the center, I echo the dot-to-dot design and then use the same filler that I used in the busy fabric at the beginning of this video. I would call it swirl feather pebble fill. I also always like to outline the flying geese here to keep everything looking neat and tidy.
I do the same quilting in the darker area, but it's hard to see on camera here.
In the center medallion, I keep it simple by adding in some dense matchstick quilting, some dot-to-dot, and a feather. Just echoing some of the designs that are around the quilt to keep everything cohesive.
I'm going to let some quilting pay here in real-time for those folks who just love to watch the stitching. I will be sharing a lot of photos and reels of some of the Quiltworx quilts I've been working on. I have been quilting a lot of these custom quilts these past few years and I have a lot to say about them.
Oh, and my goal for 2025 is to keep sharing as much content free as I can. It really helps me to do that if you like this video, comment on this video, and subscribe to my channel.
In the description below you will find the links to a bunch of resources including my email if you want to book any of my presentations.
Thanks for watching.