Rhonda Bracey: At Random

I liked the Asiatic (Japanese?) feel to this red, white, and blue quilt. But how to quilt it? I started by stitching in the ditch along the diagonals. Then stitched straight lines around the inner white squares, with arcs at each corner, thus creating little flower shapes.

For the large border, I emulated the fabric by stitching flames coming out from the inner blue border.

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Back:

Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Glide ‘Cardinal’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 70001); Isacord (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour A3941/Fb4133 [dark dusky blue])
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (red)

I know these quilts are a great way to use up scraps, but they can be the devil to quilt, especially if the person making the top hasn’t flattened out the 8-way joins in the middle of each ‘circle’. The big bump of fabric can break a needle and throw out your timing really easily (a $100 repair at least). Fortunately, the joins on this one weren’t too bad.

I did a large all-over meandering stipple so that I could deliberately avoid the 8-way joins, and because the colour etc. were so busy no-one would be likely to notice the quilting anyway!

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Threads used:

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

What a bright quilt this was! To highlight the sunny yellow, I did all the quilting with yellow thread.

For the main body of the quilt I did half arcs/semicircles. I needed to get my muscle memory back after not quilting for 6 weeks or so and this was the perfect motif for that.

Other than stitching in the ditch, I left the black border unstitched, and just did piano keys in the coloured border strips.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

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