About a month ago, a good friend of my mom's was in town for a visit. She loves to spend her time here working away in my mom's sewing room and singing along to her Pandora station. On this trip, she finished assembly of a very cool photo quilt. It is made with pictures from her son's family vacation earlier in the year. She printed all the pictures on photo fabric and then cut and pieced them into the quilt. It is really stunning to see in person.
While she was here, we had a discussion about ideas for quilting it and a few days later, my mom told me that she really liked my idea and wanted me to quilt it.
I decided not to quilt through the photos at all since they were the feature of the quilt. I did wavy lines in the blue sections and was a little stumped on what to do in the border. I looked and looked for a panto or shell stencil that would work, but they were either too big or too detailed. After thumbing through all my quilting books (ok, all 5 of them), I found this pattern called mussel shell, in Linda Taylor's machine quilting book. I'd done this pattern before but in an all-over method. I limited it to just one "shell" wide and ran it all around the border.
The quilt was batik borders and a batik back, and I didn't know how it would do, but it turned out okay. The top thread was signature poly, which gave me quite a few fits. I changed to a new needle, then to a bigger needle, and had to go pretty slow for it to play the game without shredding. I used a silver bottom line on the back and boy, how I love that for a bobbin thread!
Once I got started, this one moved pretty quickly (and it helps to have a deadline!), and now it is off on its way to be found under a Christmas tree. I am sure it will be a very special quilt for the recipients!
While she was here, we had a discussion about ideas for quilting it and a few days later, my mom told me that she really liked my idea and wanted me to quilt it.
I decided not to quilt through the photos at all since they were the feature of the quilt. I did wavy lines in the blue sections and was a little stumped on what to do in the border. I looked and looked for a panto or shell stencil that would work, but they were either too big or too detailed. After thumbing through all my quilting books (ok, all 5 of them), I found this pattern called mussel shell, in Linda Taylor's machine quilting book. I'd done this pattern before but in an all-over method. I limited it to just one "shell" wide and ran it all around the border.
The quilt was batik borders and a batik back, and I didn't know how it would do, but it turned out okay. The top thread was signature poly, which gave me quite a few fits. I changed to a new needle, then to a bigger needle, and had to go pretty slow for it to play the game without shredding. I used a silver bottom line on the back and boy, how I love that for a bobbin thread!
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| Quilt back showing wavy lines |
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