2019 Finish-A-Long - First Finish

My first finish for the year - the Pastel Baby Quilt. 

You can find my list of proposed finishes for the 2019 Finish-A-Long in this post. 

Please visit Leanne's blog She Can Quilt for more information on the Finish-A-Long. You will find  detail on how this link up works and also find the list of bloggers who are hosting this great event. The Link up for the First Quarter Finishes is on April 10th.

This quilt was a surprise all around. I started this over Xmas for something 'mindless' to sew, so started to cut up the Fat Quarter bundle of Foxglove Gardens fabric by Leanne Beasley for Ella Blue fabrics. These are not my colours but I thought that they would look nice for just a quick little baby quilt. As things go, I then cut out a few birds with my Accuquilt Go cutter just for fun and appliqued them on the quilt top to jazz things up a bit.

As these pastels are very specific, I could not find a backing that I could use. The green in particular is a green-yellowish colour and it was clear that I was not going to find a good match. I finally decided to piece my backing together from the leftover fabrics...for this I watched Elizabeth Hartman's free Craftsy (now Bluprint) class 'Creative Quilt Backs' and with her fabulous guidance was able to piece all the bitses together. This was great...no measuring, minimal cutting and just like putting a puzzle together. And bonus...I finally 'got it'!

For the quilting I selected a dainty, cute design from Christine Maraccini's book 'Machine Quilting Solutions'...also a first. Had looked at that design many times, but was never quite game enough to try this for an allover design. However, this little quilt just needed that particular design.

Finished quilt measures 36.5in x 41.5in

Binding is a bit hard to see...I was able to find a striped binding with the exact pastel pink and green in it. Funny enough it also has some blue in it which is not in the quilt top, but it weirdly matched anyway.

The quilt is stitched on my HQ Sweet 16 with dusty pink Omni thread (40wt) both in top and bottom as I wanted the quilt to be reversible and the pattern to show both front and back.

Close up of the Cotton Blossom allover design

Nice texture and easy enough to stitch out, however you do need to be able to improvise a fair bit to fill in the empty space consistently. Overall I managed this quite well, but had to concentrate, stop and start and look ahead and around me to see where I missed spots. This design was great in that you could just swirl over to the spot that needed filling and then continue on your way.

Linking up to Quilting is more fun than housework Oh Scrap!

Karin

Floral FMQ Design

How many times do you sit starring at your quilt wondering what to quilt over it? And how many times do you think of a design, but then decide that it is too complicated, too time consuming or too risky to try?

Believe me, even if you are a more experienced freemotion quilter, that happens with every single quilt for me. 

I was looking at my pastel quilt and initially just wanted to quickly do a meander over it and be done with it. However, it did speak to me asking for something different, more dainty, floral and cutesy. Tried to ignore it, but kept coming back to it...

I have this really good book called 'Machine Quilting Solutions' by Christine Maraccini that has a number of beautiful designs in there. I like this book as Christine illustrates her designs on the one quilt in 3 different modes...the dragger (quilt that is going to get more than average use by being dragged around), the keepsake (special, but you don't want to spend too much time on it) and the showstopper (prized heirloom). Lots of leafy, floral and swirly designs...great resource with step-by-step illustrations.

Well, I ended up choosing the Cotton Blossom fill. It is absolutely perfect for this little quilt, but I was somewhat hesitant, as doing overall leafy fills are not as easy as they look. I nearly did not do it, fearing that I would stuff it up, not get it right, make it look awful etc...you know the drill!

Glad I persisted and overcame the voice of my inner quilt police...it actually does not matter greatly whether this turns out and with some concentration there is no reason why this should not work.

So, off I went...and it looks beautiful! I am trialling a different thread also...after having stitched with my trusted Aurifil thread for the last year or so to get used to the Handiquilter Sweet 16, I am finally ready to venture out a bit. I am using Superior Omni thread in a dusty pink colour. Have a whole cone of it that was part of the package when I bought the machine. I am using it in both bobbin and top (Needle size 16) because I want the quilting to show on the back of the quilt as well. To my surprise it worked like a dream...

Done about a quarter of it and yes, it is a bit challenging to keep the area consistently covered but I like the way this design complements the quilt. Should be interesting when it is all finished. Planning also on a striped binding to jazz this up a bit. 

Karin