Edge to Edge Quilting

Could not resist doing a pantograph over a very, very scrappy charity quilt. While I don't normally do this on charity quilts due to the time it takes to do this on a sitdown machine, this quilt literally screamed to have the design put on it. Funny how some quilts do seem to speak to you instantly.

The design I had to do was "Happy Times' by Hermione Agee. It is a 5-1/4in design, however I used a slightly enlarged copy as I already had a roll of that taped together ready for use. I have detailed the process of preparation and quilting it with Golden Threads paper elsewhere on this blog, so I will not go too much into the details again (you can also search my blog using Edge to Edge Quilting and it will bring up a number of posts on the topic).

I did however do something a bit differently this time to speed up the process. Normally I trace every single row with blue water erasable markers, however this time I traced it only once, then laid about 6 rows of paper underneath and stitched through my first row with a bigger sized needle (unthreaded) on the domestic sewing machine. So I had about 7 templates of the design ready to go. Personally I prefer to have the rows traced individually but that does take considerable more time. With the paper that had the design as punctured lines it was marginally harder to see, but also felt a bit more precarious to stitch out...as you are travelling along the line, depending on how accurate you are, you are going to hit the punctured pre-stiched line which will then slightly separate the paper in some places. Not a big problem and makes taking the paper out later easier, but it feels a bit more unsecure as you go along.

Anyway, here are some photos of this beauty...this design is so right for this quilt and gives it a really nice texture on top of securing some of the more precarious seams ( I think this is quite an old quilt top that had a few seams that were coming apart and a bit of fullness in some areas). The thread choice was also interesting as the quilt had a bright red pieced backing. As I am slowly but surely using up some older thread, I chose a red variegated Gutermann 50/3 thread to quilt this out. Was not sure how that would go...I don't often quilt with red thread as they can be a bit finnicky at times in terms of tension (why do I even have this thread in my stash?), however had no issue with it and definitely adds to the 'happy' look of this quilt.

The finished quilt

Close up

The very bright backing

The thread choice was definitely right, even in places where there was a lot of blue fabric. Just looks really cool. Also used the same thread in the bobbin which makes the back of the quilt look great. The variegation is hardly noticeable due to the vibrance of the red fabric.

 This was very enjoyable...love it when it turns out just like you had imagined! I think for the next charity quilt though I will move on to some ruler quilting...something I have seen on Natalia Bonner's YouTube and I just got the quilt for it.

Happy quilting!

Linking up to Finished or Not Finished Friday

Karin