40/365 Artist at work

My mom has owned and operated her own custom quilting business for nearly 10 years. She does her work on a longarm machine, which differs from a sewing machine in that instead of feeding the fabric through the machine, you move the machine over the fabric.

Before she started doing this, I had no idea the actual stitching on the quilt could add so much to the piece as a whole. It truly is an art form.

And Mom really has an eye for design. She free-hands nearly everything, knows when not to make lines cross, how not get stuck in a corner... it really amazes me. And she knows when a quilt needs a fancy, complicated design or when an all-over simple repeating pattern would complement it better.

In these pictures, she's working on a customer's quilt. Her goal is to eventually do only her own quilts, focusing mainly on art quilts, but until that day comes, she has a steady stream of customers lining up for her work!


Camera: Canon Rebel DSLR under overhead fluorescent lighting.
First photo: 1/60s, f/4.0 at ISO 200
Second: 1/60s, f/5.6 at ISO 200
Third: 1/60s, f/5.6 at ISO 400