Quilting

Sometimes a girl just has to quilt her own quilt!

No rush on this, but I have been itching to do some different quilting, and a need to practice means to quilt my own quilt.  This was the Richmond Reds pattern that I made back in January.  So much fun to make and I thought would be good to practice on.

Been wanting to try some soft feathers, and my last couple times trying them I was just not happy with the look.  But I can see definite improvement this time.  Am happy with the results.  It was really quite fun!

I quilted a different design in each big color block.  A little challenging to come up with so many designs, but that was the point, right?

Really happy with how the star points came out.  The squiggle was the second design I tried, and it just makes the points look like they are really radiating out.

There were some designs in here I tried and didn't like, or did a jiggle here and there.  But I decided to leave them in ... It's my quilt and I didn't think anything was so glaring that it looked awful.

This red fabric seemed to lend itself to trying to do an orange peel type design around the black lines.  It didn't come out

perfect, but I like it.

All free motion, and for this project I used Glide thread.  One of my favorite colors by them, Vegas Gold.  Glide thread has some controversy attached to it ... A lot of people complain about it because they say it shreds and breaks.  My Innova loves it; I just run it on a loose bobbin and as loose a top tension as I can get.  I have no problems.  I love it because it has a great sheen and really accents the fabrics and the stitching just lays right on the fabric and it looks beautiful.  Think that is one of the reasons I really love how this quilt came out.  I don't use it so much in customer quilts anymore because not everyone loves the sheen.  Another thing like about quilting for myself ... Being able to use up my weird sized pieces of batting,  I used three pieces in this quilt and no one could tell once it is all quilted!

Feels so good to have a quilt done out of my finished top stack!  Now to find the binding ...

Swirling

My very favorite free motion quilt design is a loopy swirl.  Or as my friend has named it, my "signature" design ... Ha ha!  

Free motion is my favorite type of quilting and when I'm quilting just to give a quilt texture, I want something easy flowing, fairly speedy and simple.  I really love a basic stipple, fairly close together. 

If you look at antique or older quilts, they are not filled with detail quilting.  The quilting usually fairly simple.  I think that's why I love a stipple because it just reminds me of simpler times.  It also could be because I spent lots and lots of time learning to stipple and getting it right.  That is by far the hardest quilting design ever ... It is hard to get the flow and the curl right ... Mine always used to look so jerky.  I finally got it right when I started thinking of them as puzzle pieces ... That's what I imagine when I'm quilting ... As if I am trying to lay each curve as if it could fit into the curve below or beside it.

Anyway, my loopy swirl is my go to quilting design for many reasons.  It looks simple, but not too simple ... And in the case of this quilt which was for a child, the stitching keeps the quilt together and will hold up well to wear and tear.

It took me a little while to pick a color.  I likes all four of these thread colors ... 

Hot pink, turquoise blue, bright yellow and a bright red.    The pink was not the right color ... I liked the blue and the yellow, but didn't think they really did much for the quilt.  The red was a different kind of red, and not much goes with it ... But when I laid the color on the quilt, that was it!

 

I'm really happy with the way the color shows, and my customer loved it too.  It was really a fun quilt to quilt because all those little cats kept peeking at me ..  Look at that fabric!  Who couldn't smile when you see that?

There are some quilts that are just a pure joy to quilt, and this was one of them!