Quilting the Red and White

I glue basted the quilt, it might very well be that I will end up with some folds and kinks on the back, I don’t care. This will be pretty heavily quilted, it will be lovely.

I know, you can’t tell, but I did some basic walking foot quilting with monofilament. That is a good way to stabilize the quilt so I can move wherever I want along the surface. This is the first time I’ve stood back from the quilt and looked at it carefully. Yes, I had it up on my design wall when I finished the top. That was a long time ago, and the room the design wall is in doesn’t give me much distance. I love the design, I love how I placed the lighter and darker reds. Yes, there were many rip-outs as I went along. I didn’t have the whole design mapped out before hand. Just a general idea. As it grew I ripped out and changed fabrics. I’m sure I could have narrowed the selection down some more, but I do like the scrappy red feel

A shot from the back with the light shining through. You can see my basic grid with the monofilament. I love the shadowy look of the red.

It is very different quilting with a large table. I don’t have that heavy drag of a quilt falling over the edge and causing all that stress and pain in my shoulders.

Having the quilt on the table, all the same level, it’s heaven. I also love the acrylic insert that keeps the machine flush with it’ surroundings.

First of all, I quilted the compass rose with red thread. I tried to leave the lightest areas un-quilted – to give that wonderful dimension. I’m using wool batting which helps a lot with that affect. Then I drew a simple grid with my frixon pen. I want the orange peel pattern, which isn’t too hard to do – unless you have all the ins and outs of the star rays.

I’m doing some ruler work, I love the echo affect. Taking pictures really helps, made me notice that I forgot to quilt a certain area, so back under the machine! I’m quilting the red areas in red and the background in white. Yes, there are a lot of starts and stops. This isn’t about speed, it’s about enjoying the quilting process and having a quilt I adore.

I think I’ll be quilting most of the red before I decide how to fill the white.

It was fun to stop, put the quilt on the garden wall and take a picture of the progress.

I am loving this so much. I ended up doing some ruler work on the inner border of stars. I want to think carefully about the quilting designs as I move out to the edges.

In keeping with the red and white theme, the back is solid white. So it’s interesting to see the quilting on the back, both the red and white.

Ok, I got some birds nests in the back. Even though I’ve been bringing the bobbin thread to the front, I guess I missed it a few times. Also, I now see that I missed an in the ditch seam. No, I won’t be going back, unlike the orange peel background, this is really not noticeable.

And now for a break, while I make my grandson a sleeping bag for pre-school.

Leah

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