Seems a good time to get this going. I long ago painted the piece seen in the previous post.... but I would like to get it quilted before the 2013 show which begins the 24th of this month. While I seldom put borders on art pieces... this piece seems to beg for one as it has a postcard-like feel. In this case I am playing up the colors of the enormous cruise ship. Just a quarter inch segment of red amidst a black border will work for me. It's all pinned ( I still like to pin my quilts) and ready to go.
This may seem odd, but the very first thing I do on most of my quilts is use invisible monofilament to secure major areas so I can immediately eliminate the pins and feel free to quilt. Since I also use monofilament in the bobbin, I set my top tension as low as I can... on my Bernina... a ZERO. That's usually just right for this effort. It's hard to thread monofilament ( at least to see it) and I use as small a needle as possible.. eg. a 60 sharp or max 70 sharp microtex. It's much easier to match up the tiny needle hole with the tip of the thread if white is in the background. In this case, there are white clouds in the quilt top sky so I'm using those to see... but otherwise, I use the white back of a business card and hold it behind the needle as I thread it. Click on photos for a closer view.
I approach this securing much as I do quilting. I start generally in the center of the quilt top and work my way outward, upward, downward. I don't go around EVERYTHING... but I do enough that I know the quilt top and back will stay in place when I move to the quilting segment. You can see I follow the piecing idea of stitching in the ditch though there is no real ditch here. I generally TRY to stitch right where one color/value meets another. Out comes the pins as I go...
I'll begin again on the next post with quilting from the middle outward.
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