I knew from the beginning that I wanted to do something special for this quilt. A simple meandering or all over pattern just wasn't going to be good enough.
I was thinking back to what I learned in Lisa Sipes' classes at the Lakeland Sewing Expo that I took in March. A couple of things really stuck with me in particular: sketch it out before you sew it (to see how it flows, if it's balanced and so you get a feel for the rhythm) and most importantly...stitch outside your comfort zone. I so often do simple designs in the quilting because I'm afraid if I mess up it will take away from all my hard work piecing the quilt. But if you want to get better, you've got to try!
I sketched out a couple versions I had in my head. The one on the bottom seemed a little more conservative and easy but as soon as I sketched it I knew I wanted the top one. See how on the bottom one it all blends together? But the top one adds depth and interest based on the varying levels of quilting.
I sketched out a couple versions I had in my head. The one on the bottom seemed a little more conservative and easy but as soon as I sketched it I knew I wanted the top one. See how on the bottom one it all blends together? But the top one adds depth and interest based on the varying levels of quilting.
I didn't want to draw the whole design on the quilt - it would be painfully tedious plus I like to learn to free-hand the design. The more I practice doing it without marking, the less I feel like I need to mark the design. To help me though, I did use a blue pencil to mark tick marks where the points of the flowers would be and a different mark to show where the flower centers would be.
Time to load it up onto the quilting frame!
In the inner squares, I did a simple flower pattern but it came out really cute!
I think it took me about 6 hours to do the quilting but it came out really great. Here's the quilt fresh off the quilting machine:
Finally, here's a closeup of the back so you can see how it came out like my sketch. I still need to do some practice on my pebbles (the touching circles). For pebbles, you want to make circles or ovals of various sizes to fill the area. There shouldn't be ANY open space and all the pebbles should be touching. When I try to go back over lines I had already done, it was hard for me to do. Not sure if that's because of my equipment or if I just need more practice. Even still, I'm pretty darn proud of how it came out and I'm so grateful for Lisa's encouragement to try new (and scary!) things on your quilts!
Once I trimmed up the quilt and tidied up any loose threads, all that was left to do was the binding and label. I'll try to get some really pretty shots of the quilt when I give it to her but it's dark right now so I know I won't get any great photos. I can't wait to give this beauty to my mom for her 50th birthday (although it will be hard to give away)!
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