I've been keeping busy with some early morning quilting. I haven't been able to spend a whole day at my machine yet...too much to do. But, I'm looking forward to being able to do that again, soon. This is usually the time of year that I spend lots of time at the machine because it's so hot out and quilting is (usually) an inside activity. I'm knocking this quilt out in little short bursts before work.
I took a picture with less direct lighting to show off the quilting. When I quilt, I usually see something in my mind, let's call it my "vision" for the project. This one is impatiens in a fern bed. I quilted the flower and impatiens leaves in the floral center, and am outlining fern fronds in the background. I've got most of it in and am filling in small spaces now. With a pattern like this, that's loose and natural, I always leave empty places. Then, when I'm done, I can figure out how densely I want the piece quilted, and how many of those spaces I want to fill. While I'll be filling the larger spaces in this one, I'm planning to leave small spaces open to accentuate the fern fronds.
The drawback of that is the quilt is not evenly quilted across the entire surface. And, judges frown on that. But, they usually cut me some slack because the unevenness is part of the overall design. The reason I think they judge it so closely is that an unevenly quilted quilt is very hard to square. I don't know if you can see it in the top photo, but the quilting in the center has drawn that space in because of the tension in the thread, and made it smaller and the border has a ripple. The only way that ripple will go away is to quilt that space as densely as the center is quilted. (With ferns, of course.)
Everybody have a great weekend! It's hot as the devil's...toenails here. Record breaking heat. And, if you do venture outside, you're swarmed with mosquitoes. This is the inside season in Texas. Think of it as January in Michigan. Same principle, just the opposite reason.
So, I'm off for my mile walk. It's the only time of day that I can get in a good cardio walk. No more quilting today. But, tomorrow is another day...and I don't have to go to the office.
Lane
5 comments:
That was good of you to include the three, ever closer, shots of your quilt. And to explain your vision of what quilting pattern and how to place it. Knowing your thought process makes me appreciate your work even more.
And that inner border fabric is just right.
Fantastic quilting. Have a good weekend. Mary
forget the judge's frowns! That quilting is gorgeous!!
The quilt is beautiful and the name is perfect. Thank you for posting the three photos. lum
I love the idea of quilting fern fronds around the flowers, like a garden bed. I wonder if there's anything else you could do to take up some of the excess fabric in an area you don't really want to quilt. Like maybe a smattering of French knots or clear seed beads? They could be seeds that fell from the flower blossoms, or they could be little no-see-'um bugs. I LOVE your quilting and hope you get to sew all day tomorrow.
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