Last week I took a fantastic series of lectures from Joanie Zeier Poole. Her specialty is Heirloom Machine Quilting which showcases very tiny stitches over the entire surface of the quilt.

I never knew that listening to someone talk about machine quilting for hours on end could be so exciting! She went over many tricks of the trade and explained the importance of planning the quilting before you even start.

Here’s Joanie showing some of her smaller wholecloth pieces.

She loves to use thin silk thread with soft wool batting to show off the stitches to their best advantage. (I wish the pictures weren’t so blurry!)

Here’s a picture of me and Joanie with her show-stopping quilt. I regret that I didn’t get a better closeup of this quilt showing the intricate details of her fantastic quilting. She designs all of her own patterns and machine quilting stencils.The best part is, I took this class with my friend’s mom, named Judy. She’s my new found quilting buddy and we have lots of plans to take many more classes together!