Rhonda Bracey: At Random

I wasn’t sure about this quilt when I pulled it out of the packet during our quilt retreat. Just blue and white? And then I had an awful time with my machine stitching in the ditch around each block, until my friend (and Handi Quilter dealer) Michelle took a look at the machine and made a small adjustment to the ‘finger’ in the bobbin area. Then it stitched fine!

I started it at the retreat, but as the power went out on our last night, I didn’t get to finish it there, so I finished it this weekend just gone. I had in mind to do something in the white parts, possibly some sort of lattice effect following the straight blue lines in the white and blue fabric. But when I looked more closely, I saw that none of the lines lined up with the lines in the other blocks, so with a lot of marking and calculating required, stitching a straight line lattice just wasn’t going to work for me.

Instead, I recalled some ‘matrix’ designs that Leah Day had done, so I decided to do a wavy diagonal matrix in the white blocks, leaving about a 1/2″ between the lines. These are super easy to do and you don’t have to be perfect 😉 Also, if you stitch the matrix correctly, there’s no stopping and starting, except at the beginning and end of the block. I really liked the effect — I achieved a lattice effect without having to use rulers or mark lines. And I think the curves add an organic nature to the quilt that straight lines just don’t have.

For the borders, I just stitched a straight line 1/2″ from the edges, then in the dark blue border I stitched loops (like lower case ‘L’s or ‘E’s in cursive writing) between the straight lines. I left the blue sashing strips unadorned.

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Back:

Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Glide ‘Rock Navy’ for the stitch in the ditch around each block (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour #30001); Fil-Tec Glide ‘Cream’ for the lattice work (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour #20001)
• Bottom: Bobbinfil in black and white depending on which thread I was using in the top