Trying My New Toys

While basting my baby quilt the other day, I got my wall hanging ready for basting as well, trying my new Ultimate Background Stencils from Cindy Needham.

Ultimate Background Stencil Collection

Marked part of the Japanese panel that I acquired at the last quilt show with the Twisted Grid (Papa size) stencil.

Twisted Grid

Had watched Cindy Needham's YouTube videos and placed the Twisted Grid vertically (the stencil has a horizontal and vertical alignment line) which gave me this great sense of movement which will look fantastic for the sky part of that wall hanging. Not sure whether I should have maybe used the smaller size...there was just so much choice! The marking was done with a thick blue water soluble marker and went like a dream. How did I ever do without these stencils...what a time saver! As this is just a little practice piece, I was a bit sloppy with alignment at times, however this was easy to correct and ultimately will not show. I am now debating whether to stitch this freehand or with the walking foot. Also not sure whether I am going to fill it or not...quite like it like that.
For the rest of the panel I used the Mama sized clam shells...and maybe I will throw in some Bamboo stencil. As I will be stitching with black thread on a black background this will just be texture. This should be fun!

While I was playing around with the stencils, I realised that these stencils could have a multitude of uses, not just background, i.e. my Triple Line stencil could easily be used for my Tumbling blocks quilt to fill in the individual blocks...very useful indeed.

Now back to the basting for me...

Karin