Retro Flower QAL

So Retro Flowers is sort of finished.  I’ve tried not to over quilt it, and now have under quilted.  I need to go back and fill in some spots.  This is the fourth quilt I’ve machine quilted and two of those were baby quilts.  This one was right under 70″ square and I used polyester batting for the first time on this one.  For some reason it was pretty ungainly and hard to maneuver.  I’m sewing on a Bernina 820, so I have plenty of room to work with.  I used Mettler Metrozene thread, with a Supreme Glider and feed dogs down.

Before starting I sketched the quilt layout and what I was hoping to quilt.  My daughter wanted straight horizontal lines with intermittent circles much like an abacus.  I also used a sketch of hers of leggy flowers for the bottom and sides.  Let me say straight lines are much harder to sew on a machine than I thought it would be.  I would much rather work with a curvy pattern.  I think this would have been a really fun design to quilt on a long arm.  I would love the chance to try one.

Here is a close up of some of the flowers.  You can probably see some of those blank spaces I need to fill in.

I didn’t have enough white for the back, and I’m glad.  I really like the lime green on the back.  You may not be able to see the detail, but I think I like the quilting from the back.  I wasn’t sure I would.  Again, definitely need to fill in some.

Forgot the label again!!  I really want to get in the habit of sewing label into the back.  Oh well, next time.

2012 Free Motion Quilting … May project

This month’s tutorial for SewCalGal’s 2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge was led by Leah Day. I was really excited when I heard.  Leah Day’s blog was the main free motion quilting tutorial I found when I became interested in quilting.  She has an awesome blog that lists so many patterns and tutorials.  Her tutorial this month was for two patterns based on a foundational meandering.  I’m sewing this on a Bernina 820, with OpenToe Embroidery foot, Feed Dogs down, Tension 3, Universal 75 needle, and Mettler Metrosene thread.  You can’t tell by this photo, but tension was the best I’ve done so far.

Leah suggests buying layer cakes and keeping them to one side for practice ‘sandwiches’.  I really liked that idea, but decided to hit a sale at Hancock’s, buy inexpensive quilting cotton and cut them in 10″ squares.  I think it will work great.

Dick n Jane / Patchwork Chevron Quilt

When Kelly of KelbySews introduced her Precious QAL, I thought of my Dick n Jane fabric by Michael Miller.  It definitely isn’t one of those fabrics precious to all, but I had to have it when it first came out.  To show my age, I remember using these readers in first and second grade.

I had to dig out the quilt magazines with those patterns just to remember how old the fabric was!  It must have come out about Spring 2007.  Been sitting on my shelves a while!  At the time I didn’t really care for the patterns that were introduced for the line and never cut into the fabric.

When I posted the fabrics  on the Precious QAL Flickr group and asked for pattern suggestions “OregonSurfers” on Flicker suggested the Patchwork Chevron by Jeni of In Color Order .  That was actually a pattern I had pulled to work on in the future, so I liked the idea.  A few of the figures in the fabric needed to be pieced so they matched the 5″ block in the nine patch.  Once that was done, I got busy putting this together.  I finished the quilt top today.  Yaaaaayyyyy!

Now to figure what to do for the backing.  I have larger character blocks that I would like to work into a base fabric.  I’m looking at something like the Pezzy Print.  I like the Pezzy Magic Beans as well, and also think Sketch will work.

Larger Character Block

Plan to have this finished before next Precious QAL linky.   Guess I had better order fabric!