This pretty quilt was almost perfectly square, which was some achievement considering the triangular/bias blocks in the border! How to quilt it?
I started by stitching in the ditch around every stinkin’ coloured piece of fabric… Yep. Every one.
Then I auditioned some designs by putting a plastic sheet over the top of the quilt and marking on it with a marker, erasing, marking again, etc. until I got something I thought would work. The borders were always going to be cross-hatched to match the fabric seams and the angles of the little coloured squares in them, so that was easy. And I decided not to stitch the coloured fabrics, just the white space.
For the main star blocks, I did all sorts of things — 3-petal half flowers with a curlicue in the centre of the central petals; art deco style triangular type things in the squares (some facing one, some facing out), then finally big art deco style lines in the odd shapes.
I used my Line Tamer ruler for the cross-hatching in the borders, and for the very large outlines of the odd-shaped diamonds; everything else was free motion, including the stitch in the ditch straight lines.
I quite liked the overall effect.
(Click on a photo to view it larger)
Threads used:
- Top: Fil-Tec ‘Glide’ (40 wt trilobal polyester, colour ‘Cream’ #20001)
- Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna-Glide pre-wound bobbin (white)
Rhonda Bracey: At Random 
Wow, that’s a LOT of ditch stitching. Pretty.
Love that “star burst” effect!!! Reminds me of all such stitching I did in my “Stained Glass Quilt”. The “petals” work so well as do the grid stitches on the outer areas. That would do well in a show!!!!!! Hugs……….
This is very effective quilting – really nice. My Line Tamer arrived today – ty, Rhonda, for putting me onto the line tamer. Where do you buy your threads – Fil-Tec?
I get my Fil-Tec threads through a local supplier. Getting them posted from the US would be WAY too expensive.
Beautiful quilt and the quilting really makes that quilt pop!
wow Rhonda! 142 community quilts.. let me know when you reach 150 so I can put the quilt on the WAQA blog!. Phil T
I love your work and really appreciate that you took the time to take pics at the Australian WONDERFUL quilt show. The above quilt is really really nice.