First, the pastel finish. I settled on a quilting design (ahem, many designs) for my baby quilt made from orphan blocks, scraps, and stash. I nearly gave up and simply quilted in the ditch between each round. Then I reminded myself that I regularly chicken out on learning new quilting designs because I don't want to spend hours hating the quilting. On a baby quilt, there's no more than a few hours sunk into the quilting, so it's a good place to experiment. I quilted swirls, feathers, loops, vines, and so on. Binding, in green scraps, was a breeze after agonizing over the quilting. "Orange Sherbet" is complete! (It's around 40" square.)
"Barn Dance" was the next quilt to tackle. It's basted for quilting with a wide backing piece. Now the agonizing and conundrums for the quilting plan. What color of thread? What quilting pattern? I don't know! Please offer suggestions, since I don't want to leave this lingering in the wings. This quilt is made from a lovely dark blue batik as well as many, many scraps of hand dyes from Vicki Welsh. The pattern is a scaled down from Barn Dance by Denise Russart.
In the meantime, while I puzzled over the quilting conundrums, I breezed through the layout and partial assembly of my mini 9s. I see a few dark next to dark blocks, but when I was to the last row, options were limited. And it's random, which was the idea, right?
P.S. Be sure to check out the pink projects this weekend!
from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.
13 comments:
So much work accomplished. Great job! In the tiny little 9-patch, the first column at the right, if you move the first red block to the bottom, all the dark blocks will move up one and eliminate the double dark. Just saying. I would use a light blue thread to quilt Barn Dance but again, just saying. That quilt is awesome! ;^)
I'm the last person to give advice on quilting designs; that's always my stumbling block too. As for thread I'd use a thin thread - for instance Aurifil 50 - in a neutral colour, for instance pale grey or sage green, which won't compete with the lovely bright colours of the churn dashes. You could always quilt each motif separately in it's own colour. That has been done, but I, for one, don't have the time for it! Nor, I suspect, do you!
I can never decide how to quilt anything on my DSM either so usually end up hand quilting anything special. I also practice new FMQ designs on baby quilts.
You always have a lot of wonderful quilts going on. I love the mini 9s. And I love random. That's how a lot of the vintage quilts I'm attracted to were made.
Love your quilts! I agree with Chantal L. on the 9-patch - moving the top block to the bottom or the bottom block to the top in that last row will split up the double-dark pair. For thread I would suggest a medium gray color - but I can't comment on a quilting design - I'm still stuck on wavy lines back and forth - LOL - ;))
For the barn dance how about swirls for fhe backg and either different fills (great practice) or some outline quilting in the churn dash blocks.
I always love all of your projects, Katie, and especially the Barn Dance quilt! I just noticed how some little blocks are part of the bigger ones. So fun!
Yay for working through those quilting dilemmas and trying new quilting designs! The pastel baby quilt looks wonderful!
I never have much confidence when it comes to choosing quilting designs, but the Barn Dance quilt made me wonder if you could use concentric diamonds over the entire quilt. Maybe offset the diamond shape to make things more interesting?
You do have conundrums! But what beautiful ones you have! Your barn dance turned out so great!
I love how each of these quilts turned out! I can't offer any quilting advice, though - I'd still be dithering a year after you've finished the quilting! (My first thought is always hand-quilting, but that's because I'm a dinosaur...)
Love that Barn Dance quilt! I would be inclined, like you, to just stitch in the ditch around the lovely bright patches with a dark navy thread. But I'm no quilter, I'm a piecer. ;-)
What a great bundle of finishes (or almost finishes!).
That Barn Dance is gorgeous!
I LVOE your barn dance quilt! it's fantastic! I always want to make a quilt like that, but then all the measuring, cutting, and paying attention while piecing always get to me. I'm such a lazy-(read mindless) piecer, that I know it would be too exhausting. (sounds really lame now that I type it...)
Wow, you got lots done. I really like Orange Sherbet (perfect name). Barn Dance is gorgeous. Sorry no quilting ideas from me. I really don't do well at that decision (it's a good thing I send my quilting out). Though it might be nice to use a rainbow colored thread for the quilting. It would really shine on that dark blue.
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