Saturday, March 25, 2017

S Curve, Circle, and Basket Quilting

'Am working on a customer project of a wall piece of applique.  This a a beautifully done quilt top made by a skilled quilter so I need to do it justice with quilting.  I needed a background fill with interest and quilting of a flower basket .  Since it is not my quilt,  I can only show the quilting motifs used.  I love the background fill of echoed S curves and small circles.  Because there are plenty of curves in the applique designs, before I began any S curve quilting, I did a 1/4" straight stitch around the flower basket and the inside edge next to the border.  This adds a mental sense of order that benefit the many curves.   All the better with directional changes of echoed groups of S curves. A thread that is slightly darker than the background fabric makes the quilting show up.  I used a gorgeous longarm cone of a neutral  thread made by Glide (color name= Shell). By the way, my Gammill seems to like Glide threads.  Thank you  to whoever invented thread stands. In additon to the many drawers  of domestic machine threads 'stashed", I can also use some longarm threads on my domestic machine work.
The fabric used for the basket  was likened to curved cobblestone. The individual stones begged me to do a darker outline stitch in the mortar areas. This was not rocket science but you can see the improved texture of the individual 'bricks' that successfully translate to an interesting basket surface. .

Those pieces of applique that lie across the basket surface really show up.   (All applique was outlined with super thin monofilament before any work began on this quilt. )

My next effort will be to use the same monofilament to do as little quilting as possible on florals ( just enough to show off fussy cut fabrics  w/ petal changes)  I am not often  thrilled with  visable ( regular) thread atop florals. ( the exception...  sometimes stamens ).  This project will overall take nearly as much time as a lightly quilted  bed quilt but this piece of art  calls for special attention to show off the top makers work.