Do you remember the contest I posted a few weeks ago? That panel is now a quilt for the newest baby in the family, my niece's little girl, Beatrix. Her name means "bringer of joy," and she certainly is that, a much longed for child that has brought great joy to all of us.
I'm really happy with the way this quilt turned out. The quilting shows up nicely on the back, although it blends in with the floral patttern on the backing fabric. It shows up better in real life!
BTW, only ONE person responded to the challenge. And that was my son, who saw it on my regular FB post. Nonetheless, I'll share my answers in my next blog post.
(Just a reminder, this blog is my journal. It's not just for showing off pretty quilts, it's also for keeping track of lessons learned. You don't have to read this part if you don't want to!)
After ditch-stitching around each of the alphabet squares in the panel, I attached the border and free-motioned a vine pattern in the border. For the squares within the panel, I decided to do a straight-line pattern emanating from a corner in the square. I chose the starting point depending on the picture, mostly from a top corner, but not always.
I used a monofilament nylon thread on the top and an Aurafil cotton on the bobbin to go with the backing. I didn't want to have the hassle of breaking thead at the beginning and end of each line, but was relunctant to try to stitch backwards on half the lines. After some experimentation, I decided to start each line at the origin of the lines, bringing up the bobbin thread and taking several zero-lingth stitches before sewing the line, then completing the line the same way. No knotting or thread-burying required. That method seemed to secure the somewhat slippery monofilament thread even better that tying it off. And there aren't the over-stitched threads from back-sticthing.
Not bringing up the bobbin thread at the beginning resulted in a bit of a thread-mess on the back.
Whereas, bringing up the bobbin thread and then cutting it off later made for a nice, neat point where the lines converge on the back (and the top).
I chose a gold fabric for the border, and used the same fabric for the binding. I wanted the panel to stand alone. The gold fabric was kind of a French fleur-de-lis pattern; the quilting barely shows up at all.
I'm really happy with the way this quilt turned out. The quilting shows up nicely on the back, although it blends in with the floral patttern on the backing fabric. It shows up better in real life!
BTW, only ONE person responded to the challenge. And that was my son, who saw it on my regular FB post. Nonetheless, I'll share my answers in my next blog post.
Meanwhile, more on the flying geese saga
Despite my enthusiasm for the no-waste flying geese method, I am still having trouble getting these units right. Clearly I'm still tugging at corner when I'm pressing the second wing (or the first. Or both).
Fortunately, the method seems to be pretty forgiving, so even though the squaring-up can be tedious, the end results are usually OK.
The picture above shows a unit that I've trimmed up. At first glance it looked OK, but when I line it up with the lines on the ruler/cutting mat, the lower left edge is clearly out of whack. I'm think I can fudge it to make it work, maybe that corner can be "adjusted," maybe not. I put a pin in the unit to alert me that some fudging will be required while sewing.
This one will be fine. The seam allowance on the white wing will be a little shy, but nothing to worry about.
On the other hand, sometimes things work just perfectly. 😀
Happiness is trimming and having only a few threads left on the mat!
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