Another Finish

Finished my Drifting Leaves Quilt, however will not be linking it up in the FAL 2016 as I forgot to mention it on my goal list for this quarter. Never mind, I know it's the second finish.

I must say this quilt is one of the most beautiful projects I have done in a while. To clarify, this is not my pattern...I won the fabric and some Auriful thread earlier in the year through the Aurifil blog (Auribuzz). Initially I had planned to make a little Owl quilt from this, but when the packet arrived I realised that I did get a Snack Pack which consists of 2 1/2in strips. The fabric was just so beautiful and I really did not want to cut them up...so, in the end I did the quilt that was displayed on the back of the packet which was Shannon Brinkley's 'Drifting Leaves' Quilt. This quilt truly displayed the fabric in the most favourable way and I always had wanted to just make a strip quilt.

And here it is

Drifting Leaves - approx. 49in x 62in

I enjoyed making this quilt and used it to try a few different things on it, i.e. using a number of different decorative stitches to attach the leaves. I have posted about this HERE

Also, I laboured over how to quilt this. I really like the wavy lines that are used for some of the modern quilts, however for this quilt doing wavy lines horizontally did not suit. Doing wavy lines the length of the quilt freehand would be possible however I doubted that I would be able to maintain them somewhat straight and consistent over the length of the quilt doing them on a DSM. There were very few reference points (other than where I pieced two strips together) and some of the leaves were slightly tilted which would have surely send me down the wrong path.

In the end I decided to use my machine...I selected one of the wavy decorative stitches and stretched it out to maximum width, shortening the stitch length at the same time and put it into the machine's memory for continued use. I then made a bit of a plan on how to tackle the quilting

First I put a basting stitch right through the center both vertically and horizontally (I was using wool batting and even though I had it pin basted, I did feel it needed some extra securing). I then used masking tape to give me a straight line down the middle and another strip of masking tape some 8in away. I only stitched approx. 8in at a time, then stopped and did the next 8in following the numbers at the top. I also turned the quilt with every wavy line, going up and down which was a bit cumbersome, but ensured that I had no dragging of the lines. I was very curious (as in petrified) as to what this would look like...initially also a bit unsure what exactly I would follow once I had stitched the first line. When I started at the second line, it all made sense...I rode my sewing foot along the hills of the wavy line, sometimes just gliding along it and other times shifting it a bit to get some variation. This worked like a dream. As I was approaching the 8in masking tape, I could clearly see whether I was straight or a bit off and could make slight corrections. Overall this kept me very straight...in terms of variation and wonkiness, we are only talking about half an inch here and there.

Work in progress

Not that you can see it very well, but here is the first finished 8in, ready to take the tape off and go for the opposite side

Close up of the lines...I used two different colours...just because! Loved the texture that was emerging

And so I went along doing line after line. In retrospect, I could have structured this a bit differently and left some empty space that I could have filled in with some tree bark FMQ...that idea came about half way through the quilt! That would have worked really well as I would have had the lines for guidance.

The texture is gorgeous...just right for this quilt. At some stage I thought this might get too stiff because of the dense quilting, but it turned out great and it really suits the quilt.

What thread do you asked....Aurifil 50/2 wt, of course! This certainly eats up a lot of thread but you will be amazed...this is all I used for this quilt.

So economical, it's amazing!

Linking up to Let's Bee Social over at Lorna's Sew Fresh Quilts and also to the Needle and Thread Thursday Linky Party over at My Quilt Infatuation

Karin