Another First

Remember way back here when I quilted my friend Lois' first quilt? Well, when I brought it back to her at our bee, Kathy mentioned that she still had her first quilt top, not quilted. She had started to hand quilt it, but it sat for 20+ years and she decided it would be better to pull out the hand quilting and pass it over to me for practice as well. She gave it to me in the late spring/early summer and it enjoyed a spot in my closet. I bought a couple different threads for it, but none looked quite right across the whole quilt. Then, once I started experimenting beyond meandering and loops, I decided I needed to quilt it fancier than just an all over. So, there it sat, waiting for inspiration.....and sat, and sat. I finally put a self imposed deadline on myself about a month ago and decided I needed to get it back to her before our last bee of the year, which was today.

Last week, my mom was over, and she was a great help to me in deciding how to quilt it and what color thread to use. We finally settled on a variegated cream Lava from Superior Threads, with Bottom Line cream in the bobbin. I loaded it on the frame starting a week ago, and finally got to quilting it over the weekend. 

Here's the end result...

For the quilting, I stabilized right outside of the inner border because she had pressed the seams open. Then, I did loopy figure 8's in the green border, a medallion in the center, loops across all the white/cream blocks, and a pantograph on the diagonal in the colored parts of the blocks. I finished it off with the same panto in the outer border. It is a very pretty one that I inherited from a more experienced longarmer called Wildflowers. 

Here's a closeup of the panto in the outer border, 

and in the corner, where I had to use the panto as a visual guide because I couldn't get my laser to work in that area. 

Wow, I learned a lot while doing this quilt. Pantos on the diagonal are HARD! If I were to do it again, I think I would mark it instead of trying to follow it with a laser, and then free hand because the laser was just too much hassle. The squaring of the back is really important to keeping tucks out of the final product when rolling a quilt back and forth as many times as I did; in hindsight, I should have done a little more stabilizing to avoid some of the tucks I got. And, finally, while it was all a great learning experience for me, with fabric this busy, the quilting really doesn't show at all. In fact, it is really hard to see even when you're looking for it. She kept insisting I didn't have to do anything fancier than loops or meandering, and now I see that she was right...those would have done the job just as well. 

That's the last of the "first quilts" I have for now...onto the Christmas tree skirt next....I think I will get that loaded this week and don't know yet how I will quilt it, but I can tell you this....it will be quick and simple!