Rhonda Bracey: At Random

This unusual quilt seemed to be a mish-mash of disparate blocks — I couldn’t see the underlying theme, if there was one. But the colours brought it together, especially the large chunky borders.

I started by stitching in the ditch (purple thread) around all the blocks, sashing strips, applique motifs, and large borders. I left the black borders unstitched.

In each block I quilted something different — pebbles/bubbles around the spotted dog, sun rays and grass in the sun block, straight lines in the hexagonal strip block, spirals in the ‘sort of’ log cabin block, squared stippling in the block with the dice, and half flowers and straight lines in the block with the crossover squares.

For the borders, I decided to just go plain and so stitched straight echo lines (in a bright lipstick pink) about 1 inch away from the seams and about 3 inches out from that stitching line.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Robison-Anton ‘Mulberry’ (40 wt rayon, colour 2380 [I think]); Fil-Tec Glide ‘Lipstick’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 91787); Fil-Tec Glide ‘Linen’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 10WG1); Madeira Rayon (40 wt, colour 1169)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (black, white, and light tan)

This small scrappy quilt was full of very busy fabrics, many of which seemed quite old. So simple quilting was called for.

I started by stitching in the ditch around all the blocks, sashing strips, and borders. Then I free-motion stitched a simple elongated ‘U’ shape in each block, alternating side-to-side and up-and-down, creating a checkerboard effect.

I repeated the ‘U’ shape at a smaller scale in the borders.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Robison-Anton (40 wt, rayon, colour unknown [but a purple of some sort — possibly ‘Mulberry’, colour 2380, based on the colour chart I have])
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (black)

This quite traditional quilt offered me a challenge — how to quilt it? I thought about all over designs, feathers, spirals etc.  But nothing grabbed me as being suitable. Instead, I opted for using my Line Tamer ruler and stitching 8-pointed stars in the coloured parts of the blocks, and slightly different 8-pointed stars in the white space (after stitching in the ditch around all the stars in the blocks and flying geese…).

For the flying geese, I echo stitched half an inch out from the seam lines. And in the border, I stitched a straight line half an inch from the seam, then free-motion stitched (i.e. no ruler) the zigzag peaks and valleys. I quite liked the zigzag effect and can see myself using that motif again soon — it’s perfect for smallish borders!

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Glide ‘Linen’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 10WG1)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (white)

This bright scrappy quilt had LOTS of bias edges, so needed quite a lot of quilting to flatten it out.  I decided to follow the overall ’roundness’ of the pattern and stitch large yellow spirals all over the main part of the quilt, leaving the solid blue and black borders. I stitched arcs in the scrappy border.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Back:

Threads used:

• Top: Floriani (40 wt?, rayon, colour PF546)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (light tan)