Plus Quilt Finished

Decided on an overall meander

 

I have read some interesting points about the meander design lately. Many people find it quite boring and I have been a bit amazed to read that some people think it is difficult to achieve on a DSM. I reckon almost any design can be done on a DSM, depending how much practice and determination you want to put in. I agree that meandering or stippling is not a beginner design...far from it. You need to be able to speed up and slow down while at the same time concentrating on where you are going to produce a consistently visually pleasing design. Not a simple feat by any means, however with practice it can be done.

I like my overall meander at about 1/2" scale which requires some concentration as you have to keep your hands a little bit farther apart when quilting. As I have been FMQ for a while, I have no problems with the design...even if I loose concentration I usually can wiggle my way out of spots. Boring...yes, but I like the texture the stipple produces over an entire quilt. The quilt top, while quilted allover, still has that soft fluffy feel to it. And bonus...it is a really fast design...I manage a good quarter of the quilt in one sitting, so when I just want to finish off a quilt this is my go to design.

The other point is that you have to look at the quilt top itself. I saw a Plus quilt at the Machine Quilting Festival the other day that had feathers quilted allover...while it looked nice and soft (as the feathers were big) you could not actually see the great feather work done due to the scrappy nature of the quilt. Similarly, I thought initially that I might do swirls allover, but again this would not really be seen due to the design, hence I opted for the meander which was ultimately faster to do.

Maybe if I do another one, I might try the swirl to see the difference in texture.

Anyway, here is a cute picture of the resident cat while I was trying to slip stitch the binding in place:

Fast asleep, so my binding had to wait...

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced and Let's Bee Social Linky Party

Karin

WIP: Plus Quilt top

Some progress...finally got the basting done. Always a major job as I am doing it on the floor which is very uncomfortable to say the least.

Now onto the quilting...my favourite part! I am thinking of an allover design, maybe something swirly or maybe an allover flower design. Not sure yet, too many choices

Linking up to Anything Goes Linky Party at Stitch by Stitch

Karin

Progress on Plus quilt

Sporting a major head cold at the moment but managed a little bit of work. Also my camera is in for repairs so have not been able to take a lot of new photos.

Prepared the Plus quilt for basting

In line with my efforts to only use what's in my stash, went through and found a nice birdhouse print.  Some years ago I had this bright spark of an idea to buy yardage of fabric when it was on special to use for backing...great idea, except I paid little attention to the patterns. When looking at the birdhouse print I realised that I would have to piece it together to make it wider...now there was a hassle. Nearly went out and bought a wide backing piece.

Nevertheless I persevered to match the pattern. First, I looked at this fabric for a very long time to identify the pattern repeat...once I had this I then took the selvage off on both sides and then painstakingly marked the spot where I wanted the fabric to meet including the 1/2 inch seam allowance. Carefully cut both pieces at the marked lines and hoped for the best. Took my time with this and managed to piece this together nicely...

The seam is almost invisible. I wonder whether there is an easier way of doing this...this took me ages but turned out ok for the most of it.

Ready for basting once I put some batting together...have arrived at the last lot of batting. Feeling very frugal at the moment.

Linking up to Quilt Story Fabric Tuesday

Karin