Longarm Quilter Meloney Funk

A Quinceañera Quilt

Posted on June 7, 2018 by TK HarrisonJune 3, 2018

Last summer, I was having a few health issues and my family doctor decided the best approach to treating them was through a home healthcare agency. I had an RN who came out to our house every other week and a CVN who came out once a week. My CVN’s name was Bea and she was just a joy to be around! We got to know her pretty well so when she told me they were planning for her daughter’s Quinceañera for later that summer, I asked her if I could make a quilt for her? Bea was flattered and readily accepted my offer.

Bea and I took a trip out to my quilt studio so she could go ‘shopping’ in my quilt stash. She was very particular regarding the two main colors she wanted in her daughter’s quilt – Navy blue and coral. As I was pulling out fabric from one of my drawers, I happened across a piece of green focus fabric that had both coral and navy blue in it. Once I showed it to Bea, she immediately said yes and that sealed the deal.

Next came the decision about what to embroider in the quilt blocks. We had already decided the quilt was going to be a 55″ square lap quilt so there was only room for nine embroidered squares. In the center row, she wanted her daughter’s name, then her daughter’s favorite Bible verse and then the date of her daughter’s Quinceañera.

Bea told me what she wanted embroidered in the remaining six quilt blocks so I found five of them and sent her links so she could pick out the ones she liked best and then to purchase them. She gave me her login info so I could download them after she bought them. For the sixth one, I hired a custom digitizer to create it and once Bea gave her approval, I stitched it out.

I knew I was meant to make this quilt because everything came together just right!

Once the embroidery was stitched out, I began the process of building her quilt, then sent it on to my dear friend Meloney so she could quilt it on her longarm for me.

For true quilters, there is fun in making a quilt, every step of the way. But the true joy is seeing the faces and reactions of those who receive a quilt. And nurse Bea did not disappoint. She cried a bit when she saw the finished product. She absolutely loved it and she was sure her daughter would treasure it for many years to come.

Tarleton State University Embroidered Quilt

Posted on May 17, 2018 by TK HarrisonMay 12, 2018

When your daughter asks you to make a quilt, there is no better compliment. When she asks you to make her a quilt for a charity that she’s involved with, it takes it to a higher level!

For her freshman year of college at Tarleton State University (TSU) in 2017, she was the Hall Council Chair for the Honors College with the Residence Hall Association (RHA). She asked me to make a quilt that they could raffle off to the students, to bring more recognition to RHA. As we talked more and more about it, and as she talked with the RHA board of directors, they decided they’d like to have a quilt that included the logos of a number of groups around campus as well as the core values of the university.

They sent me the logos and I hired a digitizer to create the files that would work with my embroidery machine. Some of them worked the first time she digitized them. Unfortunately, for many of them, we had to go back and forth – her digitizing, me test-stitching, just to get them correct. But in the end, I met my deadline and the quilt was delivered with plenty of time for the RHA to raffle it off!

And just to add another kudo to my dear friend Meloney, her longarm quilting was icing on the Tarleton State University RHA raffle quilt cake!

Tarleton Quilt

RHA raffle quilt with the core values and 12 logos of TSU

Tarleton Quilt

Closeup of a TSU logo on the RHA raffle quilt

Tarleton Quilt

RHA quilt on the bed of the young lady who won it in the raffle

I’d also like to take just a wee bit of credit as my daughter received the Hall Council Chair award with the RHA at the end of her freshman year, and she was voted in as the vice president of the RHA for her sophomore year at TSU!

Braxton’s Baby Quilt

Posted on May 10, 2018 by TK HarrisonMay 9, 2018

When you get the opportunity to make a baby quilt for a long-time friend’s soon-to-be grandson, the pleasure begins with choosing the design. But it doesn’t end with delivering the quilt. No, it doesn’t end for a very long time – more like when that soon-to-be baby has a child of their own and you ask them if they still have the baby quilt you made for them when THEY were a baby! I’ve had the pleasure of finding that out within the last year and the thrill of knowing someone has saved their baby quilt (or their parents did) that you made them 18 or more years ago is over-the-top quilted love!

Braxton needed a baby quilt. The fabric color choices were not something I would choose as there were light’s and dark’s but no medium shades of fabrics. But the quilt grew on me as I sewed it together. And when I added the machine embroidery, that helped, too. The final thing that clinched my love for this quilt was when my dear friend Meloney quilted it (and added the binding!) for his quilt.

I rarely ask Meloney to quilt a quilt with any specific pattern. In fact, I can only think of two instances, in the 10+ years I’ve known her, where I’ve done so. She prefers to let the quilt talk to her and tell her what pattern to quilt it in. For Braxton’s quilt, once she saw the deer stag head shot, she felt quilting it with leaves was appropriate as it would signify a deer walking through a forest. And she was absolutely right!

Braxton's Baby Quilt

When You Wish Upon a Star…

Posted on February 2, 2015 by TK HarrisonFebruary 1, 2015

I promise you that you will have that song in your head and/or on your lips for the rest of the day! You’re welcome :-).

There are SO many star quilt blocks that I’d just show you a few to help you with the hitch in your getalong. Again, you’re welcome :-).

I have a friend who always makes her scraps into HST’s or fabric squares. She has bags of HST’s as well as 2″ squares. She uses these as either fillers for the quilts she makes or to just make a quilt out of them, once she has enough. A lot of times, she uses the HST’s to make stars for her quilts. I admire that. I really do! Her awesomeness in that area of her quilt life is lost on me. I either stuff the unused fabric into a basket on a shelf and occasionally pull it out and use whatever I need. When I finish a quilt, I don’t want to even think about making HST’s or 2″ fabric squares – I want the quilt done and nothing more!

What do YOU do with your leftover fabric from a quilt project?

A Quilting We Will Go!

Posted on November 10, 2014 by TK HarrisonNovember 10, 2014

I have an amazing longarm quilter, Meloney Funk, who is a friend in every sense of the word. She takes my quilts and quilts her magic. Her quilting enhances every single quilt top I send to her. I just received a baby quilt from her this past week and had to blog about it – HAD to!

Here is the quilting from the back of the quilt: