It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

"What a FABULOUS idea," I thought.

I was in a local quilting shop looking for quilt tools and, well, it really DID seem like a great idea. A small roll of masking tape cut to 1/4 inch - you could lay this on your quilt and use it as a stitching guide.

Yeah. Brilliant. Have I used it yet? Well, no. Why not? Well... mostly just because I don't really care all that much if my stitches wander just a bit. I like my "rough hewn" style.

 So this lovely roll of tape sits in my tool box and may never be used.

The Quilting Gene - the Next Generation

Happy Birthday today to my neice Audrey - she turns 5 today.

I'm planning a trip to the US soon and will be catching up with her. She's a little young for quilting, but even at 5 has shown some interest - and it's terribly sweet. You see, my mother has moved into a retirement unit, leaving her big old house forever. As part of the move she had to get rid of a few things, including some quilts. My sister-in-law tells me that little Audrey adores her grandmother's quilts, and has asked to keep them.

Now is that sweet or what?

And me... I'm seeing this as a sign that little Audrey has inherited the "quilting gene" (which was the subject of my very first post on this blog).

Good onya, Audrey!  And happy birthday!

After assembling the top for this quilt, I sat down and thought long and hard about how to stitch it. Here's what the top looks like (closeup of a couple of the blocks).

Lots of different ways to go at this, but I finally decided on outlining each block (stitching about 1/4" around the edge) and then doing a kind of diagonal zigzag inside. Here's a rather rough idea of where the stitches go (in hot pink).

So far, I'm happy with this. I've done 3 of the blocks and it works pretty well. Unfortunately the pattern simply isn't visible on the back (which is blue/cream wavy print) because the cream quilting thread just isn't bold enough to show through.

I'd thought about using thick thread or even embroidery thread for the quilting, but decided against it. I don't want the stitching to draw too much attention on such an elaborate top.

So far, so good!

Quitle 14 - civil war prints - border

Well, the civil war print quilt is all sandwiched and ready to go. I was a bit worried, as this is the first time I've made a quilt with such narrow margins for the batting and backing (knowing the batting/backing really should be a smidge bigger than the top at this stage) but it worked out just fine. Here it is, all ready to go (and I've draped it so you can see the front and back together... didn't Julie do a great job of selecting backing?):

I neglected to mention the binding we selected together. Here it is:

The print is almost a negative reversal of the outer border fabric -except that it has white where the outer border has only tan. But when we held the pieces up together, well... It fools your eye.