An interview with Laura Lea Bailey, The Surrogate Stitcher

While at the Grand Rapids "Quilts on the Grand" show in October I had the pleasure of signing a copy of my book for Laura Lea Bailey. Laura is well-known in the Grand Rapids area for her award-winning long-arm quilting. Since I hadn’t interviewed a long-arm quilter for Open Your Heart with Quilting, I asked Laura if she would answer a few questions for me and she graciously agreed.

I will present my conversation with her over the next few days in her own words. If you’d like to hire Laura to quilt one of your quilts, her contact information is at the bottom of this column and I can vouch for the fact that her work is breathtakingly beautiful!

How did you get started with quilting?

I am not from a quilting family. Growing up and into adulthood I did every "craft" that I came into contact with including knitting, tole painting, cross-stitch, macramé, photography, watercolor painting, clay/kiln objects, drawing, etc. I did not do sewing after my initial 4-H projects! My mother was an excellent seamstress and made all of our clothes growing up and she was precise! I was intimidated to say the least!

After moving to Nebraska and being far from family I wanted to branch out and take a "craft class" to get to meet people. The local craft store (LeeWard's) had a class of an Eleanor Burn's Roman Stripe wall hanging and I signed up! I didn't know it was a quilt, I just liked it! I fell in LOVE while making it! I had found what I could call MY OWN talent! (No one else in my family made quilts -- no comparisons could be made -- it was "mine")

I was soon pregnant and was busy with getting ready for my first child (this was 1990) -- I never even thought of making a baby quilt! I made my first quilt when Matthew was 3 months old. At this time I was teaching myself with Eleanor Burn's log cabin book (LeeWard's went out of business and I didn't know there were quilt shops!) I flew home and my Mom took care of her first grandchild while I sewed at her machine! I finished the queen size quilt top over Thanksgiving weekend. My first teacher told me to take the quilt to a long arm quilter to finish (again, not from a quilting family so I didn't know that I was supposed to do it all myself!) I gave my first quilt to my husband for Christmas!

The rest is history! I have made over 350 quilts… all quilted on a machine, I still have not hand quilted!

When did you start long-arm quilting?

I LOVED piecing quilt tops! It is my joy and my fulfillment I had three long arm quilters that I kept busy for 10 years! The first only did pantographs and my first 100 quilts had pantos on them. Then the more artistic quilting started to take root. I paid the other 2 quilters for more custom quilting. What I wanted was extreme custom but I couldn't afford it!

I bought my first long-arm [machine] used from the third quilter without even touching it! We were moving back to Michigan and we bought a house that it would fit into. She dismantled the machine and the movers picked it up in pieces! This was June 2000.

My plan was to try to teach myself how to quilt on it! I didn't know that there were classes out there! I was only going to quilt my own quilts, I didn't want the stress of other people's quilts to do! The first year I just practiced a little, I wasn't very comfortable and I cried a LOT! I was thinking that I didn't like this part of the process and that maybe I should sell the machine and find a new quilter!

My husband lost his job. We worked through plan A, B, C, D, E, and plan F was me working on customer quilts (not the best news for my stomach!) I had the right skills at the right time and I have been working full-time since three months after I started my business. I started my business in September 2002 when my youngest child entered first grade. I have quilted over 800 customer quilts to date.
 

You can contact Laura at:

Laura Lea Bailey
The Surrogate Stitcher
Comstock Park, MI
616 560-2381
quilterllb@aol.com