Rhonda Bracey: At Random

I loved quilting this Community Quilt. The colours were just gorgeous and I knew it needed special treatment and quilting that emphasised the richness of the colours and design.

I ended up using three top threads — a variegated brown Sulky rayon thread (Gutermann; colour 2120) in the centre section, the light border, and the outer border; a maroon rayon thread (Madeira; colour 1385) in the maroon border and the centres of the feathers in the black border; and a metallic gold thread (Madeira; colour Gold 6) for the large feathers in the black border. I used a maroon Deco-Bob thread (Wonderfil; colour DB245) to disappear into the rich brown batik fabric on the back.

I didn’t know how I was going to quilt it until I started, then just added designs as I went.

For the centre section, I arced from one centre diamond point to the next in the 4-patch blocks, then back again, followed by the edges, creating a ‘cathedral window’ effect with internal petals. For the setting triangles, I did half flower motifs. Then roundish bubbles for the first border in the same thread.

I quilted the next border in the maroon thread, doing a single line of feathers. These are hard to see in the photos.

The next light border I quilted with a ‘banana’ motif using the variegated brown thread. I left the gold/tan border unquilted.

For the maroon border, I did a square edged stipple following a singular wavy line down the centre of that border.

Then it was time for the wide black border. I hunted out some gold metallic thread that had always given me bother in my sewing machine. However, it went through the Sweet Sixteen really well and didn’t snap once. I deliberately started the feathers in the centre of each border and went out to the corners, instead of doing a long single set of feathers around the border. After doing the gold feathers, I put the maroon thread back in the machine and did little inner fronds inside each feather.

The outer border was quite ‘busy’, so instead of making a feature of it, I just did open headbands in it with the brown variegated Sulky thread.