Remember this quilt Kat sent to me to quilt for her Covered In Love project?
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| The shadows from the slated part of the patio cover. I probably should have waited until morning to take pictures but I was way too excited!! |
The quilt lived on my design wall for well over a week (I'm thinking more like two) while I finished up a couple of projects. When I first saw the top, my immediate thought was to go crazy with the free motion quilting like I did on the Blaze pattern test quilt or on Purple Haze. And then I got to thinking and bouncing ideas off of Sandra. The stars of this quilt are very obviously the paper pieced blocks. I didn't want the quilting to compete. And then I started looking at some of my quilting books and of course online. I was looking through Christina Cameli's book "Step by Step Free Motion Quilting" and hatched a plan. Wavy lines with a twist. Throw in a motif here and there to add interest. . . I let that percolate a little and drew it out on some easel paper. I put it next to the quilt top and asked my ultimate quilting advisor (otherwise known as my husband LOL) which he thought, flow or wavy lines. I think you know which he picked :)
I have come to love the wavy lines! Throwing in a motif here and there adds some interest and it totally keeps me from getting bored! haha
But lets go back to the beginning. The first thing I did was to ditch around all of the paper pieced blocks with a clear monopoly thread. Then I decided to do crosshatching in the blue zig zag. But, instead of the crosshatch lines following the block lines, I did on the vertical but on the horizontal lines I ran them perpendicular to the angle of the zigzag. If you look, you can see that this basically made for a more flattened diamond shape. Because the flower was kind of a part of the zigzag I decided to extend the crosshatching to the flower block as well.
OK, now to the end. A couple of those little critters really needed eyes. I debated with myself, and with Sandra on how to add them. I thought about applique. I didn't go with applique because I didn't want to hit the wool batting with an iron. . . I've said it before and I'll say it again, wool batting and irons do not play well together. I watched Youtube videos. I searched the internet. And then I decided to bite the bullet and dust off my very rusty embroidery skills :) I was initially going to use an 8 wt thread but that did not go so well. I could not get the knots to bury and there was no way I was going to risk putting a hole in the quilt. So I tried some black Aurifil 12 wt. Ahhhh perfection :) The knots were willing to be buried but they also do not seem to want to pop back out. Mr. Squirrel was done with a satin stitch and a running stitch. I added just little dots to the weasel, the fabric is dark so his eyes aren't real noticeable but he does look a little better with those little dots :) And Mr. Fox presented his own issues. I tried drawing on full eyes and I could not help but think that he looked like a demon dog. So I decided to do a satin stitch for him as well only on a much smaller scale.
And this one is a wrap! :) I am so honored that Kat trusted me to quilt this very special top. If you want to help out with Kat's project, you can participate by making a block (June's block instructions are up!), or 10, or a top, or a quilt. :)
For me, it is on to the next :) I still have a bit left to add to Purple Haze and I have not forgotten about the quilting post for that one! You'll be hearing from me again soon. I have decided that until that one is done, I do not get to start another project . . . I'll let you know how that goes!
Linking up with Finish it Up Friday and TGIFF with Leanne over at The Devoted Quilter.
Until next time, keep on quilting!
