It’s a cold day today (predicted high of 4 degrees F) and all I really want to do is crawl back into bed under the electric blanket, but there are quilts to be made!
After a month’s hiatus, I finally got back to quilting Jen’s quilt. She will be using this on her bed and asked me to minimally quilt it so it’s not stiff with thread. After a little deliberation, I decided on this:
Freehand swirly flowers in the floral blocks.
As you can see, the fabric is pretty busy so the quilting doesn’t show up very well. No need to get all fancy if you can’t see it anyway. This is an easy, forgiving design that I stitch without marking.
In the chevron blocks, I’m just quilting switchbacks on the navy. Again, it’s easy and requires no marking.
Originally I planned to quilt something in the white blocks, but have decided against it for a couple of reasons. First, that area is fairly small so the quilting would be dense (stiff) and second, I would need to use white thread in the bobbin and the backing fabric is a solid navy flannel. Typically thread contrast doesn’t bother me, but this would be very stark and the stitches on the back would really stand out in those areas. I’m stitching in the ditch around all the blocks so that will anchor everything together anyway.
The quilting is certainly not show quality, but it will get the job done and more importantly, Jen will be happy with it. I’m hoping to finish this up and machine sew the binding so I can hand stitch it while watching football this weekend. I know Jen will be excited to finally get it on her bed.
Also on today’s agenda is to finish the commission quilt. There isn’t too much left to do on it, but it’s tedious and I can think of a million other things I’d rather be doing. Enough foot dragging already—JUST DO THE WORK. Once I finish, I’ll write a post or two about this quilt. It’s been an experience.
