Progress

I've been working on my projects. The Cross Quilt is quilted. It still needs to be squared off and bound, but I decided to make a start on the Bed Scarf first.

Over all this is what it looks like. I did a lot of squared off patterns in the blocks, but did things like leaves and spirals in the sashing and borders. Free motion quilting is a lot of fun. And I keep getting better at it.

I learned a lot too. I don't do so well if I'm crossing seam lines, so after the first block, I didn't do that. My next project has all of its seams pressed to one side which is normal practice, but I'm going to have to try pressing them open. I've read that if one does that quilting across seams is easier.

 I've taken photos of the details. Not close enough that you can see the really inconsistent stitches, but so some of the details can be seen. This was the block where I tried to quilt across the lines, at least some of the time, and recognized that wasn't a good idea.







Lots of attempts at different patterns here. The leaves actually went very well, most of the time.

I did some just back and forth in some of the sections. Some were supposed to be pretty regular, others were intended to be irregular.









It is going to be an interesting piece. But I'm not sure I'll ever actually finish it or put it up on display. It was a great practice piece.

Learned a lot.









This is one of the blocks on the Bed Scarf. Not sure what I'm going to do in the blocks. What I'd like to do is Free Motion across the seams, but I know that probably won't be a great idea. I learned that with the Cross Quilt.

Right now I'm "ditching" the piece. That means I've got a walking foot on my machine and I'm stitching in the ditch. That will stabilize the quilt.

 And here it is in the machine. I didn't have anyone to take a picture of me doing the stitching. This was the best I could manage. I'm stitching all the long lines and have finished all 4 of them. I'll do the sashing across the piece next, and then sew the edges of the borders down to the backing and batting. At that point I will be able to get rid of all of the pins and do my free motion.

There are two "problems" to be solved. What to do in the blocks, and what to do in the borders. I could probably do the entire thing with the walking foot. But I'd be bored to death doing that. Somehow I really want to find a way to do some Free Motion quilting here.

Another question to be answered is the color of the thread in the quilting I'm going to be doing in the borders. So far I've been using white thread, which is totally reasonable where I am currently working. Not so reasonable in those borders or inside the blocks.

Take care all.