I finished one quilt before my trip and one after.
First of all, I LOVE wool batting! The quilt moved smoothly, I did a lot of ruler work and didn’t have problems. I don’t remember why I took this picture with the seam ripper. I think it’s just to show scale because I didn’t rip things out.
In the close-ups, you can see a combination of ruler work and free motion quilting. My favorite, using both.
On the solid back is where you really see the two styles of quilting. I also had the pleasure of switching out thread color. 
I have mentioned that these are not my favorite colors, and yet, I am thrilled with the result. I think this quilt is stunning, I just need to figure out who will get it. Yes, this going to the gift pile. I can’t keep every quilt I make. I can already see the comments: pick me! pick me! We shall see.
I shared this quilt at one of my guilds. Someone came up to me with an interesting comment. A lot of people love to make tops and then they ‘quilt by check’ – give it to a longarmer to quilt. The cheapest option is an all over design. This woman said that she really appreciates how I matched the quilting to the design and therefore it really pops. I couldn’t agree more. All over quilting flattens a quilt, more on that later.
I like my style of designing a quilt, it sort of happens on the fly. I knew I wanted to use my Lemoyne Star ruler so I started making blocks with different stars. Then I chose a center, which ended up being paper pieced. Sometimes a quilt is a wall hanging, usually is it meant to be used. Therefore I don’t like them square, even if it is a medallion quilt, so I build in more borders horizontally in order to make a longer quilt.
I could have shared many close-ups, but I needed bore you.
Once again, a pieced back.
How cool is this with the light shining through?!
My next finish is the charity quilt, I finished this after my trip. I’m going to blame jet lag on some of my problems. But not all, I used a 80/20 cotton batting, it’s not as smooth as the wool. I had my usual problem with the ruler, going from right to left no problem, back in the other direction – a lot of breakages. I probably should have switched out the needle, it was the same one I used on the purple quilt. So at some point, I just kept moving the quilt back to the right.
The overall result is a great looking quilt. In this case, I have an all over pattern, you know the kind of thing that flattens out a quilt? The result here is perfect, it helps tie all these blocks together, nothing really stands out, which is a good thing. There is a purpose for everything, also, I’m not telling people what they should do, just pointing out things that I like.
The quilt is 42″ wide, so I was able to use one piece of fabric that I had picked up at the sew day. It brightens everything up even more.
Artsy shot.
Another finish! Remember I made one of the center blocks for this quilt? From this angle, I’m not sure which, but it is all finished and is available as the raffle quilt for Valley Quiltmakers Guild. This was quilted by a professional longarmer, one who took the time to make the quilting stand out. Btw, I have raffle tickets for this if anyone is interested.