What's Happening!

I have started the free-motion quilting on my niece's Wedding Quilt.

My version of "Snowflake" by Trudie Hughes

Here's the back with all the signature blocks from the wedding guests

I had my quilting plan all decided on after spending a lot of time looking on-line for ideas.  The last time I made this quilt, many years ago, I handquilted intricate snowflakes in the alternate squares.  But this time, I thought I would try the method of Dot-to-Dot quilting by Angela Walters, that I learned by watching a video class I bought from Craftsy.  I premarked my registration marks on the entire quilt and practiced the design and was all ready to go, the quilt was under the needle, and I totally switched gears and decided it would look better if I did an all-over design in the alternate squares., and then that would make the stars and the chain stand out and be the focus.  So far, I am super glad that I changed my mind.  I am loving how it looks.  Freemotion swirls on the swirly print fabric gives it such a lovely texture.  Not sure yet what I will do beyond the centre part of the quilt yet.  Something will come to me!

Here you can see the difference in the background between the quilted area and the unquilted area.

For thread, I am using, for the first time, Lava by Superior Threads.  It is a 35/3 ply polyester variegated thread. Even though this thread is a heavier weight, it is lovely and thin.   I am using a 90/14 topstitch needle as suggested by the manufacturer.  It was also suggested to loosen the top tension a bit but I found there was no need. The quilting is going very nicely.  I have not had any thread breakage at all and everything is going along just great.  I am working in short spurts of half an hour or so at a time.
I hope to be finished the quilting by this time next week.


My Knitty Sister made me some awesome slipper-socks.  Super warm!

Another gift...from my quilty friend Lesley, @  The Cuddle Quilter, who knew I would just love this yellow duckie tape measure.  How sweet of her!  Thanks so much Lesley.  I do  love him and he sits on my machine until I need to use him.  You will notice I have also adorned my machine with a sticker from The Cuddle Quilter too! 

My guild, The Maritime Modern Quilt Guild is exchanging zippered pouches with the Victoria Modern Quilt Guild and this is the pouch I made.  I am not a fan of installing zippers so I figured why not try three zippers!  It was a bit of a challenge but turned out great.  

 

I hope you got time today to work on something quilty.  I am linking up with the Needle and Thread Network.  Stop by and check out what everyone is doing this week.