Minimal Quilting

Working away on the charity quilts. Had two identical panels this time and did one with an overall meander. While this was straightforward and nice I just did not feel like doing exactly the same on the second panel.

So, I decided to do some outlining and stick with some minimal quilting. This proved to be quite hard for someone like me who quilts most things really quite densely.

First things first was the preparation. This is an important step to keep things straight which proved a bit of a hassle with this panel as the center section was slightly bowed out due to the borders having been added. Can't overstate how important it is to take your time...I do pin my quilts probably excessively and then I baste them on the machine with an overall meander.

This is a lot more work but has served me well over the years...never had a pucker and there is nothing that moves in unwanted directions. As you can see the quilt is very pale and when I meandered over the first panel the characters went under a bit, so that is why I decided to outline them on this one to emphasize them a bit, as they were actually quite cute. Was a bit nervous over outlining the boxes and how this would look in terms of straightness but went ahead anyway. Normally I would have outlined the characters and probably put some background quilting inside of those boxes and some sort of design in the sashings. However the brief for the charity quilts is not to over-quilt them which proved to be a bit of a challenge as you really had to think this one through in terms of consistent quilting across the quilt.

The batting is 100% wool which gives this a bit of puff which was nice for bringing out the characters.

Had to decide what to outline and what not to keep the quilting consistent over the surface of the quilt to leave similar areas unquilted. This worked quite well and was very relaxing as most of this was done freehand which I enjoy. Used a small straight ruler for the boxes which I also echoed. Discovered that there were words in the the second border which I did not realise before, just saw a lot of letters. You can't see this properly on this photo but I outlined every heart that separated the words to make that stand out a bit more...really quite cute. The blue sashing looks a bit puffy (is however perfectly flat when smoothed over) but decided not to quilt that down because if I did that then I felt that I would have to go full hog like quilt the background in the boxes, do the borders etc.

Probably not how I would have finished this off for myself but it is a very charming, cuddly quilt which no doubt somebody will love.

Karin