Most of the last week was stitching-in-the-ditch with invisible thread to stabilize the quilt. In case you wondered how I resolved the issue of whether or not to go around every single element - I did a partial stitch-in-the-ditch, i.e. stitched around all the major seams and some of the seams in the blocks where it mattered in terms of colour. As I am stitching along in an off white Aurifil thread I was mindful of stitching the seams of darker colours down with the invisible thread and leaving the seams where I can get away with white thread for when we get to that block. That seems to be working.
While a bit out of practice, I got into the groove of it pretty quickly. Did not follow Natalia's video on how to stitch this out in one continuous go as I would have had to stop the video every 2 seconds. I made some mistakes and had several stops and starts when starting off but then 'got' it and moved purposefully around the block stitching those lines. The only issue I had was the deep purple colour and the white thread. In order not to break thread every few minutes I had to travel along the ditch to get to the next part and initially that was a bit of a nightmare. Learned something though...I have become so used to the Bernina's stitch regulator that I forgot I actual have the option of using the manual mode. So, whenever I hit the dark purple fabric in the ditch I switched over to the Manual mode, carefully stitching along. Found that I had much better control this way. In terms of rulers, I used my trusted Handiquilter Ditch Ruler for the straight lines and one of Lisa Calle's Pro Echo rulers for the curves.Turned out really pretty, I particularly like the crossed lines in the white triangles...looks very effective.
In case you have not heard, Natalia is also running a Border and Sashing Online Class in March of this year. Looks great and no doubt there will be a lot of inspiration and learning in that. This is my second quiltalong with Natalia and while I am tempted, I just have too many other things on the go this year and need to stay focussed.
On the home front, I finished testing my new pattern...now it is just a matter of putting the quilt together, quilting and binding it while at the same time writing the pattern up. This should take probably another 2 - 3 weeks and then its onto the next pattern.
Also, look what arrived today
Could not resist getting another E2E design from Urban Elementz. Undecided at the moment whether I use that for the new pattern...might be too distracting as the quilt features a few stars, so it would be more of the same and I usually like to pair lots of angular structures with more of a curvy and flowing design. We'll see...not there yet.
Karin