Some background information about me……………

Rather than to bore you with all the details of who I am, I would rather tell you about my family’s artistic background and tell you how I arrived at this point, long arm quilting.

My grandfather on my dad’s side (Pappy) was a hand-engraver and jewelry designer. This is a rare art form - no machines and completely done by skill. Pappy passed away a few years ago on the 4^th of July, but not before he taught my brother-in-law (Sonny) how to start engraving. Sonny started his own business and is still thriving.  (I've just started taking photos of some of their amazing work ~ click here.)

My nephew, Christopher G. Pike, was also a hand-engraver and jewelry designer until we lost him tragically this year, at the age of 32, to a motorcycle accident.   He was a very special person, loved by all and missed more than words could ever express.

My sister Phyllis is multi-talented! She can do anything from sewing to upholstering furniture; painting, making draperies, and quilting. She took 7 years of private art lessons when she was younger and can draw or paint anything. 

My oldest brother Mike can draw any style picture, whether it be landscaping or picture portraits. He has designed many costumes and even won a prize in a local contest one Halloween for his Alien costume. All his costume designs are true to the era and perfect down to the last details. Unbelievable…he could have gone to Hollywood and made a mint, but he chose not to.

My brother Rick has always loved music and taught himself how to build electric guitars from a block of wood. He does all the work himself, including inlays, fretting, stringing, tuning, and painting, all of it! He has done several miniature guitars for Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top. Even the minis can be hooked up to amps and played. He can restore and repair just about anything with strings.  He made one of two guitars that exist out of wood taken from the home of blues legend Muddy Waters.   

My mom is a quilter; she loves to piece and does most of her quilting by hand. Sometimes she will let me machine quilt hers. Her work is very imperfect and she prefers it that way. It is so odd, because I am so much like her in some ways, but I am a perfectionist. She always warns me….don’t look too close, it isn’t perfect. I tell her it is her quilt and her own style; this is what makes it beautiful. She still enters her work in our local fair every year and has won ribbons.

I remember when I was about 24 and I made my first craft item. It was a cloth covered photo album. My mom and sister Phyllis went on and on how they could not believe I had done this! Well, it only grew from there. I have done about every craft known to women.

I had never sewn when a friend I worked with about 14 years ago was making a strip pieced quilt. I thought it was so pretty so she gave me the pattern and explained to me how to make it. I went out and bought my first sewing machine. I finished my quilt top within a week, working on it after work. The quilting took me forever, almost. I started quilting it by hand and then put it up in a closet for about 3 years. I just did not like working with the bulky fabric. I did eventually finish it, but did not care to do any more for a long time.

Then about 5 years ago, Phyllis came over with a table topper she made that was an 8 point star. She had seen a quilt advertised on QVC and drew a sketch to remember what it looked like and designed one of her own.  I liked the design so much that my mind started working on overtime! I had her explain to me how to do it and off I went, not even a pattern! I wanted to go pick fabric for my quilt when Phyllis told me about a new quilt shop in our area. I never knew there was such a thing! We went to the shop and picked out my fabric, again with no pattern to give me yardage needed, I just bought. I hand quilted this quilt and it now belongs to Betty Cowan, who loves it!

Once I was introduced to the quilt shop….it was no more Hancock’s or Wal-Mart for fabric! The quilt shop fabric quality was very impressive and the cost was well justified. I made several more quilts and took classes to learn more techniques. My husband asked me one day why didn’t I quilt my quilts on my sewing machine and I told him because I liked the hand/needlework. I liked to do embroidery growing up but I started thinking about what he said and decided to take a machine quilting class at the quilt shop.

They told us to take what we learned and to practice, practice. Well, I have always been an advanced learner and did not like the idea of practicing anything; I just wanted to do it. The quilt shop sold the Nolting Quilting Bee, designed only to quilt. I knew not to sit down at this machine because I would want to buy it and it wasn’t really cheap! Finally, after about two months of passing by the demo machine in the shop, I sat down at it and started quilting. Needless to say, I ordered one. When the shop owner delivered the machine and I started operating it, they said I was a natural. I thought they were just being nice but others agreed because they started asking me if I was going to quilt for the public.

It took doing my own quilts for awhile before I thought I would give it a try. I wasn’t working at the time so I decided I had nothing to lose and gave it a try. I was surprised how much work I got from the start. I even won 2 blue ribbons at our Mid-South fair in 2004 for my quilts. Be sure to look for the pictures in my gallery.

I started getting larger quilts and found that I felt limited by the machine I had. Phyllis and I decided to go to the AQS show in Paducah and see for ourselves what the long arm machines offer. We got so excited about what we saw. We both went home and started thinking about how we would get one for ourselves. Phyllis found a used machine in the same week that I talked to Nolting and purchased my long arm from them. (Phyllis currently works at a full-time job and does her own quilting for now. She wants to consider quilting for others in the future.)   When I shared with my customers that I was upgrading, they were as excited as I was about the limitless possibilities.  In 2006, I upgraded again to the machine you see in the photo above.  If there were possibilities before, the sky is the limit now!  

So this takes us up to where I am today. I have found my niche in quilting and am here to stay!

Thanks for your interest; happy quilting…and I hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,

Chris Ballard

Longarm Quilt Artist