Sunday 25 April 2021

Fearless Quilting

After all that practicing of the woodgrain design it was time for me to go on my actual project.
First though I basted my table runner. I did this in a loose grid following the seam lines where I could in order to keep it straight. I thought that this might help me to keep my design straight.
This time I used red thread for the basting so I could actually see the stitch line well enough not to get confused with my stitching. 

Thread choice! I was going to quilt this with a grey-ish thread, however during my trials did not really like this over my leaves that much. Also, the grey was much lighter than the background so every little imperfection was going to be a feature. Tried all sorts of different thread ideas...from different colours down to Invisafil and finally ended up with monofilament thread. This was not the original idea but I thought  that I did not really wanted the quilting to take over the project, rather the quilting was to go into the background and just give me the texture. The star of the quilt was supposed to be the falling leaves.

So, I made a start with Monofilament thread. I chose Superior Monopoly thread for this rather than the Aurifil Monofilament thread. Maybe I imagined it but I thought that the Monopoly thread just looked that little bit more matte than the Aurifil thread. So, I made a start...

You know that stupid feeling when you are starting something not that familiar...this fear of totally stuffing it up and for a moment then you are hesitant to start. Well, I still get that after all those years...however, I did make a start and it started to look quite decent. 
Mind you, came across another issue...skipped stitches! Not a lot, but one or two per row...enough to be annoying. Changed my needle to a Microtex Sharp 80/12 needle and also reduced my stitch length and that fixed the issue, except for one or two seams which seemed particularly bulky where the thread just did not grab. Noticed that when I went slower and more deliberate I could largely avoid this. For Bernina Q20 users:
Stitch length: 12 in BSR1
Tension: 1.25
Bobbin Thread: Aurifil 50/2

So, I kept going and going, the design going pretty much out of shape as soon as I started. You can see above that I did my first wavy line with a wave ruler to get off to a good start. I did echo this once and then started on the knots, then echoed again and slowly but surely got a bit out of shape. Must say that I did not mind my lines a bit flatlining here and there...with a bit of concentration and looking (and thinking) ahead this fixed itself up after a few rows.

Almost done...you can see that I lost a bit of straightness going towards the edge of the quilt and also managed to put some bigger, ugly spaces in...was not really too worried about it as you cannot really see the stitching...was actually glad that I chose the monofilament after all...I think it would have looked totally overwhelming in a slightly different grey colour. Like this you only notice lots of texture which is what I wanted for this quilt.

And here is the finish

Very organic looking...happy with the result. If I was to do this again, I think I might choose a different background, the contrast is quite strong on this piece. If I had a rusty brown for example, I could have matched the thread to that colour and it would have still looked ok over the leaves...or maybe even a somewhat faded green background. 

Well, this was good fun and I might do another one of these with a different background. But for now, I'll do the binding and then get going on writing up the pattern. 

Karin

5 comments:

  1. Absolutely stunning. I think you did a fantastic job with the wood grain FMQ motif and it looks perfect on this quilt. I truly can't think of a better quilting design for this project. I love it.

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  2. Your quilting turned out fabulous! Good for you!!

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  3. I think that is very successful!

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  4. Your quilting looks perfect! I really love it. Great job!

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