My Take on Commission Quilts

I very rarely do commission quilts. Most of the quilts I make are just quilts and then I give them to someone. I am now getting to the age of lots of babies in my life (not mine) that sometimes I make baby quilts, but I better really like you… The thing I am apprehensive about when it comes to commission quilts is that I quilt for fun and this hobby is my creative outlet. I do not want to be constrained and/or told what to do. If that\’s the case then I am just paid labor and we all know that no one will pay you enough for how much work truly goes into a quilt, so it is not even worth it.

I will do commission quilts every once and awhile if the party allows me creative control. I will ask for a color palette and then will specify two degrees of difficulty which will determine how intricate the design will be at two different price points. They give me those two choices and then I deliver them a quilt for said price by said date. I have found that if I do that then I still can create something I enjoy making and that is \”me\” and can also make sure that they get what they want within a set of expectations.

With all of that being said, a good friend of mine approached me about making his new niece a quilt and we decided on a color palette and price and he let me go. Men are so much easier in relinquishing design control than women. 🙂 The below quilt is what I created and it was a custom design, my first one in my new EQ7 for Mac software!!

Her wanted her name on the quilt and I am not a fan of applique on baby quilts due to high use and washing, so I wanted to paper piece the name.

This took longer than normal but I think the durability of it is worth the time. I used the My ABC\’s Complete Set by Diane Bohn and LOVED the result. There are several heights to choose from and then of course you can always customize the size on the printer for whatever you need.

I wanted a scrappy, but modern look so I went with a stacked coins type piecing that I think looks great in this color way. I simply cut my strips, sewed them together in random rows, then sewed those rows together, and cut to the width I desired.

I set the name into the quilt along the bottom part and decided to do it in a dark brown so it would show up clearly. Here is the finished top.

I actually never got a picture of the quilt after it was completely bound, but here is one with the simple loop-de-loop quilting and before the binding has been sewn down.

They loved it and it is being well used, just like a baby quilt should be. 🙂 I hate it when people won\’t use the quilts you make them because they think they are too pretty. The whole point of a quilt is that it is useful. I guess at the end of the day the recipient can choose how they want to use us and that is up to them. That\’s another blog post for another time. But I do love to know and see that it is being loved like I intended. 🙂

And Uncle Jason was so sweet to get a picture of Brooklyn on her quilt over Thanksgiving. 🙂 Baby cuteness alert!!