Quilting the Borders

I've had a huge dither about how to quilt the grey border on Scatty Stars.

I had a practise with zig zags of various sorts, and tried stars (which didn't work at all). I could have done a stippled border (whee! Loads of fun!) but I didn't think a swirly border would work well with the rest of the quilt either.

Then I had a eureka moment, though, after I saw Joanna's Christmas Wreath quilt, but rather than wavy lines, kept with tram lines, with a star in each corner.






I've trimmed the quilt and it's ready for binding (or will be when I've redone a couple of the corner stars as they are rather close to the edge).

Then burying about ten thousand ends (honestly, I'm not kidding here!) and a label, and I'm done!

Project Number Five

Despite not having finished Scatty Stars (quite), I am cogitating upon the Next Project.

Now that mum's seen the first couple of quilts that I have made, she's asked me to make her a quilt for her bed. The brief was that she didn't want a really 'busy' pattern, and it had to match the three colours in the curtains, and also the carpet.

Ha! Easy peasy - I just gave her Sue's Pick Four and asked her to choose which one she would like me to do for her.

The designs are all lovely, as we know, and for me, I know that the instructions will be good to follow, and I have the added advantage that if I need to alter the dimensions at all, the esteemed author herself will be able to advise on changes in fabric quantity, and other helpful advice. Brilliant!

Mum's chosen Antique Nine Patch, and we will be going on a fabric choosing expedition when big sister Helen is up in a couple of weeks.

I do have my work cut out slightly in that mum wants to have the quilt with side & bottom pieces - as in this example from the FoQ - to cover over the drawers in the bed base.

I was thinking of side panels and a bottom panel that are removable (zip/buttons/velcro?) so that the top can be washed separately - and of course, I'm not sure how and to what extent these pieces should be patterned.

So lots of food for thought there!

So today, I tried out our nearest independent fabric shop (which I had always thought was monstrously expensive) to see if this would be a good place to shop for what we need, as opposed to Hobbycraft, or the well thought of Cotton Patch - which is over the other side of the City.

I had a pleasant surprise to see the bolts starting at £8 a metre - and a sale shelf of selected fabrics at £5 a metre. So I couldn't resist a metre of this wonderful pattern, and an offcut (about a third of a yard) for £2.

A good day!

That's Better!

Right - I've done the tedious unpicking bit, and I'm now doing the fun FMQ stars.

Whee!






There's lots of ends to bury at the end, though.

The grey border needs to be quilted, but I'm not sure how at the mo.

More conundrums!

Goldilocks and the Three Bears...

...or Make Your Bloody Mind Up.

I've been cogitating with regard to the colour of the thread used for the FMQ on Scatty Stars - inspecting closely what I've already done in the daylight, and consulting with colleague Rita, and my mother who happened to be around too.

The conclusion is the the light grey is too light, the dark grey is too dark as shown in the pic here.




I am now using a mid grey, and I'm not giving myself the option of changing my mind yet again - it looks better than either of the others, not overwhelming the quilt design, but not fading into nothingness either, so I'm happy.

Well, as happy as a girl with a whole heap of unpicking the too-light and the too-dark sewing can be anyway.

If that Hobbit even thinks, 'I told you to use a practise piece!', there will be trouble!

Hmph.

Scatty Stars Experimental FMQ

I loaded up the new dark grey thread this evening, and had a play with some FMQ stars to see how the thread looks against the quilt top.

As predicted, I hit my stride this second session of FMQ, and had to stop myself from romping away doing the whole quilt - I had to remind myself that this was a test to see which thread looks better. The two stars at the top of this block are in dark grey, the bottom two are in the light grey.

Jury out until I see it in daylight tomorrow.

Oh.

Colleague Rita points out that the lovely grey thread that I bought last week for the quilting doesn't stand out as much as it might.

Most irritatingly, I think that she is right.




So before I plough on any further with my FMQ stars, I'll give this darker grey thread a go - possibly the dark grey for the top thread & keep the paler grey for the bobbin thread.

If it looks better than the block and a half I've done, I can undo without too much bad language.

Bah.

Scatty Stars Quilting Decisions - Made!

This evening I've finished quilting in the ditch around all the blocks, and of course round all the stars. Which leaves the fun bit of the FMQ stars in the railfence blocks.






Or rather, the bit that will be fun once I hit my stride. I did quite some unpicking earlier, and there's been too much in the way of breaking thread (and I broke another needle - I'm too rough!)





The second block of four stars has started well (bottom left here) - and I sensibly made myself stop before the magic hour and a half mark when my concentration gives out & I start to forget the bobbin etc etc....