Quilting Randomly

I finally finished basting my big quilt.

Now I'll have to quilt it. I haven't free-motion quilted anything in a long time so I'm going to do a few warm up projects first. And practice on paper.

I dug this cupcake out of my fabric drawer. It was from the June 2009 quilt shop hop. It's is only 8 inches square. Layering the backing, batting and top and basting took under 5 minutes. I wish they could all be done that quickly.

First, I outlined the cupcake. I am really out of shape for free-motion quilting - the thread broke a few times and the stitch size is way too small.

Then I moved on to the stippling. I started getting more comfortable and the stitch size improved. My hands remembered how to move the fabric to stipple and my brain engaged.

I've been blogging about stitching and knitting randomly and it clicked that stippling is quilting randomly. I do the same random things. If you start repeating the same pattern the stipple doesn't look right - it has to be random.

This isn't random - it's the same thing over and over again. But, I like it and use it in small borders.

Here's an early attempt at stippling.

It's not right. Whenever you find yourself getting into a pattern you have to veer off into another direction or turn and inside loop into an outside loop.

This is getting closer to random. However, I kept working myself into a corner and had to restart.

A little more practice on 2 wall hanging size quilts and by then I should be back in shape.

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It's about time - the big reveal

My bright quilt was finished in June but I wanted to wait until both were done before sharing the pictures. Quilting the blue quilt didn't take long but finishing the binding sure did. I did procrastinate a bit as it was too warm to have a huge quilt on my lap for most of the summer. After this, I'll probably do all the binding on my sewing machine (and stick to smaller quilts). Notice the cut-out corners? That was a challenge. I found instructions here and it looked easy enough but I wished I had practiced some. After a lot of finessing I finally got good miters but I could have done much better. The cut-out corners allow the quilt to hang nicely over the edges of the mattress and it's a perfect match for a full sized mattress. But, the top edge isn't even close to the pillows. I wonder how the quilt fit on the bed it was made for. Here, at last, is the original quilt that I was copying. I just noticed - all of the baskets are

The last 2 blocks and the tops are done!

I needed 2 more blocks to finish the gray version of the quilt. I ended up making simple 9 patch/half square triangle blocks. One is the yellow block in the lower left. Here it is closer up. When I made the half square triangles I had the red fabric going the wrong way so you are seeing the backside of the fabric. So the red in the triangles is a little lighter than the red in the center. It wasn't worth redoing. The other corner has a blue block and I managed to get the front of all the fabrics showing. So, here's what it looks like almost complete. And here's the blue version of the quilt. I've got the backing and the batting for the gray quilt (the backing is in the washer now) and I'm working on the thread to use for quilting and how to quilt it. They are too big for me to free-motion quilt. I don't have the space. As it is, quilting with the walking foot will be a challenge. These tops deserve so

Basted

A few weeks ago I was at the Local Quilt store basting my bright sampler. It's been ready to go for a while. I've been working on a baby quilt and it's now done. It's been a while since I've quilted so I'm glad I had a quilt to warm up on. Next I need to pull a folding table out of the garage and re-arrange my quilting space. This quilt will have a lot more drag than the baby quilt. I've also been looking at pictures of similar quilts looking for quilting pattern inspiration. I'm thinking of taking the easy way out and u se wavy lines like this quilt . I should start quilting next weekend!

Erica's Stitches

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