Rhonda Bracey: At Random

This pretty pastel quilt had lots of conflicting motifs — ragged circles, embroidered cupcakes in squares, and a variety of colours.

How to quilt it?

1. Using a pastel variegated thread, I stitched in the ditch around all the blocks, including the inner squares of the cupcake blocks and around each cupcake.
2. Next were the circles — I echo stitched in between the existing spirals, then flowed off the spiral motif into a large meander around the circles.
3. I echo quilted the cupcakes, then did a heart/leaf motif in the surrounding strips.
4. With a soft green thread, I stitched a straight line in the border around the entire quilt, 1/2 inch from the border’s seam.
5. Finally, I used one of my Handi Quilt scallop/shell rulers and stitched the borders n that same green thread. I just did the echo quilting around the scallops free hand (no ruler or marking). I still haven’t figured out how to do corners with these rulers! Even if you mark the centres and work out how many half circles you need, the rulers still slip and go off-kilter <grrr>. So only one of the corners in the borders looks even vaguely right.

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Threads used:

• Top: Silco (colour #SCM03 [variegated pastel]); Madeira (rayon, 40 wt, colour 1047 [soft green in border])
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (white)