Quilt 101: Indigenous Zig Zag

Oh, I'm proud of this one.  I really am!

I posted about this project a few weeks ago: "Indigenous Zig Zag"

I bought the fabric at last years' Australasian Quilting Convention here in Melbourne.  It was a very large bundle of fat quarters, each piece a different design inspired by Australian aboriginal art work.  I pulled out the gold/red/brown prints and used a quilt design I'd purchased in Florida several years ago (but hadn't gotten around to making).

Well - here it is!

(doublclick to see a larger image)

It's 50" x 75" with 100% cotton batting.  There are 463 individual pieces - that may be a new record for me.

It took me a while to decide how to quilt this one.  Using brown thread was pretty much an easy decision.  I chose solid brown fabric for the backing, and dark brown thread pretty much disappears on the top.  But what stitch design should I use?

I got out my rulers!  I did a simple, straight-forward stitch-in-the-ditch around the 3 narrow outer borders, then did the same "...in the ditch" around the copper zig zags.  But I needed just a bit more quilting in the large center of the quilt.

Here's a closeup photo with lines drawn in yellow, showing the stitch pattern for the quilting.  It's just inter-connected triangles - simple, really.

And here's what the back looks like:

The stitching around the outer borders is easier to see on the back, as is the zig-zag and triangle shapes.

All the stitching is done with my rulers (it's just about impossible to keep the lines straight without a ruler).  This is the most work I've done with rulers to date.  At first it was really awkward working with the ruler, but as I went along, well, I found that once I relaxed it got easier.

I still have half the fat-quarters stack I bought at the convention last year. I may just make another one of these!