I didn't manage to do something in the studio every day last week - life intervened at the beginning of it - but I did make good progress on adding quilting to Naomi's quilt. There's a real temptation not to put any quilting in the 4 inch borders but that would just be laziness on my part. I'm considering a looping design which I would trace out on strips of the Golden Quilting Paper. I really like the look of the diagonal quilting through the diamond areas, deciding after all not to free motion any design in the light area.
In the end, there wasn't much dithering over which thread colors to choose for the quilting. I think I knew from the beginning that these two - a variegation of light lavenders and the darker one of blues and purples - would be my choice. If nothing else, I could tell they were favorites by how much thread was already used up off these spools.
Once all the walking foot quilting was done, I pinned the papers with the free motion designs in place with flat flower head pins - it worked really well.
The design fills the corner areas nicely.
The center design though doesn't reach out into the outer points. I'm considering either adding a heart in those spaces or quilting in Naomi's name - or both!
Of course, when you quilt through papers, the paper needs to be removed and I saved that task for Monday of this week, when I checked out a local charity quilting group. I've known about it for quite awhile but they meet on the same day as my art group met, the irony being that I'd invited a quilting friend to join my group at about the same time she invited me to join this group! Well, my group isn't meeting right now so no more excuses! Apparently they had a larger than usual turnout and lots of finished or near finished charity quilts to show during show and tell. A little bit of business and then it was nose to the grindstone as machines started humming, cutting began and pressers stood at the ready to iron seams and binding strips. Their quilts go two places, first to cancer patients, and any extras to a homeless transitions organization. It's been a long time since I've done charity quilting, and yes, I've felt a bit guilty about that, and I had a very good feeling about this group. AND I got all my papers removed from my quilt before it was time to go home. I'm sure I'll be back. Here's an article from 2016 that tells a little more about the group and its origins.
3 comments:
Your quilting is beautiful! I think some simple loops in the border will 'finish' it off! But, it's dealer's choice & you get the final decision on that! I read about the quilt group you attended & it sounds like a nice way to spend time with people who are helpers. I love to iron (crazy, I know) so I'd take the pressing station if I were there! Lots of snow & subzero temps happening in our area this week! Jan in WY
Thanks Jan - the quilt is coming together so nicely! Tracing out the loop pattern I chose today. And you are not crazy - I love to iron too, a favorite part of prewashing yardage as well as the final step in dyeing.
Am agog at how much snow part of the country are getting while we got a few inches only. But also winds and arctic blast - I think it was 2 degrees this morning. I did venture out briefly yesterday and couldn't believe how the wind was buffeting the car as I sat at an intersection, really moving it back and forth - would not want to be out on the highway in that!
Stay warm, stay safe . . .
The quilt is looking great!
I really don’t like ironing or anything to do with cleaning. I think it’s because my mother was obsessed with it and she made us do it growing up. She made us wash the walls in our house twice each year. She even made us wash them before we moved out of the house. No wonder I hate cleaning.
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