Rhonda Bracey: At Random

What a pretty quilt this was! I loved the colour combination of aqua and grey. And looking at it closely, it was made with a simple pattern I’ve used in a couple of recent quilts (https://rhondabracey.com/2015/09/07/baby-quilt-kaffe-fassett-fabrics/ and https://rhondabracey.com/2015/09/28/baby-quilt-with-tonga-treasures-fabric/).

How to quilt it? I wanted to something not quite floral, but not geometric either. I thought about big spirals, then decided to do a motif I haven’t done for a while — a spiral that comes out with rounded arms. It looks a bit like a flower, but it isn’t; it could also be a stylised Aboriginal motif. Anyhow, I thought it worked well with the quilt top design and colours.

For the border, I continued with the aqua thread and the rounded arms from the main motif, stitching elongated ‘u’ shapes of various widths.

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Back:

Threads used:

• Top: Robison-Anton ‘Mint Julep’ (40 wt, rayon, colour 2310)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (white)

I loved these orange fabrics and how this quilt design worked together.

How to quilt it? I started by stitching in the ditch around all the hexagonal blocks and their elements, except the white surrounds near the centre. Then I stitched white flowers in the brown centres, followed by straight-line ruler work a quarter-inch from the seam lines in all the orange parts.

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Threads used:

• Top: Robison-Anton ‘Dark Tex. Orange’ (40 wt, rayon, colour 2469)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (light tan)

This magnificent and bright scrappy quilt had heaps of small squares and half-square triangles, and almost as many flying geese! Someone spent a lot of hours making it. How to quilt it? The busy-ness of the fabrics and the design didn’t lend themselves to anything too elaborate that would get lost in the craziness of this quilt. So I decided to do an old favourite in the main part of the quilt top — my variation of Angela Walters’ swirls, which I think sets off the sharp points nicely. For the border, I just stitched in the ditch around the flying geese and the pinwheels in the corners.

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Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Glide ‘White’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 10000)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (white)

This quilt had odd-shaped motifs in the blocks. How to quilt it? I started by stitching in the ditch around each half star while I waited for inspiration to come 😉

Eventually I decided to stitch half circles ‘behind’ each half star, with a quarter-inch echo — I used my semi-circular Handi Quilter rulers for these. I filled the background with a large meandering stipple.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Glide ‘White’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 10000)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (white)

This scrappy ‘eye-spy’ quilt had lots of busy fabrics and a multitude of colours, so a simple all-over quilting motif was all that was necessary. Instead of a meandering stipple, I decided to do large bubbles/pebbles in yellow thread.

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Back:

Threads used:

• Top: Robison-Anton ‘Merit Gold’ (40 wt, rayon, colour 2463)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (white)

How to quilt this dramatic red and white quilt?

I agonised over how I would quilt it as I stitched in the ditch around ALL the blocks, eventually settling on doing a wonky star in red thread on the white crosses, and some very dense quilting on the ‘backgrounds’ to the red stars, thus creating a puffy square effect. I used my Line Tamer ruler for all the straight lines, except the dense quilting.

I thought about doing a white wonky star motif in the red squares, but decided against it as I quite liked the puffiness of those squares against the rest of the quilt.

I stitched straight ‘piano key’ lines in the tartan border, following the pattern in the fabric.

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Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Glide ‘Cardinal’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 700001)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (red)

This quilt was made up of approximately 2.5-inch squares of fabric ranging from light at the top to dark at the bottom. As with other very visually busy quilts, I just stitched it with a simple all-over motif — a large meandering stipple for this one, using a variegated thread of brown, green, and orange.

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Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Harmony ‘Tweed’ (40 wt, cotton, colour 14076)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (light tan)

Another scrappy quilt, this time of approximately 1-inch squares sewn into 6×6 blocks. The person who made the quilt top also top-stitched the squares — I’m not sure why.

Because  it was such a busy quilt with all those fabrics and all those tiny squares, I just quilted it with a large meandering stipple, in a matching blue thread.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Floriani (40 wt, rayon, colour PF373)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (light gray)