tiistai 12. syyskuuta 2017

Allietare and texas waltz finishes

I am on the backlog of some finished quilts, actually finished quilts!

We are already living september now, and  have to confess, that I havent been quilting quite as much as I would have wanted. The Allietare quilt has been finished in April, you can see it from the lack of green vegetation in the picture.


Now my next finish, my texas waltz quilt got its last stitches when the vegetation is yet again turning to autumn.



The texas waltz quilt has been in my mind for several years, after seeing a picture on the interweb. It took me about two years to get all the brown fabrics together (including some last minute panic purchases, because while sewing I ran out! math ... not my strength). I started Texas Waltz last year November, and while it was not always my first in line quilt, with some smaller projects in between, it took my until September, i.e. 10 months from start to finish. 10 months of brown bits and pieces laying around in my studio.
After the quilttop was done I contemplated and procrastinated on actually quilting it. One reason was, because it is an enourmously big quilt. I think we all know the chore of pushing a big quilt through a small sewing machine. And the other reason was, because I had set my mind to free motion quilt the center blogs.



The initial straight ling stitch in the ditch quilting finally went quite easily by. Step by step and line by line. This was followed by a period of drawing the free motion design onto the quilt with fabric marker. I practiced the design a few times on a practice sandwich and then jumped into it. After ten designrepeats, I started to get into a nice rhythm. I also realized that I could slow down the speed of the sewing machine a bit, and it resulted into better stitch pattern. This improved my quilting a lot.

There is still lots to be practiced in free motion quilting, but it is a start, and I am happy about it.

Have you had any finishes lately?