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Cricket and Jeff Lomicka of Chelmsford, MA, are another longarm quilting couple. For the Lomickas, the joy of their work comes from collaborating with one another. They said, “It’s gratifying to be able to have something to share together and bounce ideas off each other.”

Cricket and Jeff met at church in Acton, MA, in 1981 and immediately became good friends. At that time Cricket had several large floor looms in her home and was very involved with weaving. In fact, her wedding gown was made of her own hand-woven fabric.

Jeff is a software engineer. He worked 15 years at Digital Equipment Corporation and has spent the last 11 years at Avid Technology. He writes software for editing motion picture sound tracks which is an especially imaginative field. He’s also the official photographer for MQX 2007 and has produced a DVD of the event.

Cricket has a background that involves work as a graphic artist and weaver. She started quilting in 1985 as a hobby and then established a quilt shop business with her sister who she calls a truly serious quilter. Eleanor Burns’ book Quilt in a Day Log Cabin was her first quilt. Her next quilt was too big and so she asked at a quilt shop about quilting it and the price quote seemed high. Cricket started hand quilting and quickly grew tired of that, so she thought about getting a longarm machine. Her idea was that if she quilted for others it would be no more expensive to buy the machine as it would to send out quilt tops.

The Lomickas bought a Gammill Classic Plus from a dealer in Holley, NY, without shopping around. Cricket recalled, “We watched a demonstration at the shop and got it right then.”

A bit later Cricket thought it might have been the biggest mistake. When she first began working with the new machine, she panicked. Jeff tried the machine and found it to be a lot of fun.

“Cricket is a genuine creative artist,” Jeff said affectionately. “She does the freehand quilting which I don’t do.”

Jeff likes to work with pantograph patterns and make his own panto patterns. He knows how to accomplish this with his extensive background in computer graphics.

Cricket said, “I tend to follow the rules. Jeff thinks outside the box and that is so great.”

One room of their basement is set up as a studio. There are separate spaces for cutting, quilting and ironing. Cricket also has a room upstairs for sewing.

“We don’t work together in the same space because I’m a clutterer and he’s a neat-nick,” Cricket related.

The same things that make Cricket and Jeff work as a couple in general carry over into their quilting. Most of the time Cricket does the piecing and Jeff is the machine quilter. When a problem comes up on the machine, he researches and fixes it. Together they work out color schemes and patterns. Cricket usually does her piecing during the day and works part-time at the quilt shop. Jeff likes piecing too, but only gets the time to make about one quilt a year. Sometimes they work on quilting a piece together. Jeff views their quilting as an art and a craft, the artist integrated with the technique. They enjoy making quilts for gifts, charity and for sale.

Reprinted from Quilting Now, May 2007