Rhonda Bracey: At Random

I quilted four Community Quilts on my quilting retreat weekend last weekend. I didn’t keep track of the threads I used, so unlike the others I’ve documented, you won’t get thread choices in these posts.

Unlike most of the quilts I’ve quilted for the Community Quilts program, I did NOT like this quilt. I didn’t like the colours, the fabrics used, or the size of it (it was HUGE), though I didn’t mind the backing fabric 😉 The plain blue fabric used on much of this quilt just didn’t match (in my eye, at least) the other colours used, and I suspect it was old sheeting or old fabric from someone’s stash. The size of the quilt made it a real pain to move around, and, as I was away from home, I didn’t have my improvised bungee cord system to help prevent drag and hold up the quilt, so my shoulders were really aching by the time I finished it.

To avoid looking at that horrible blue for too long, I took the advice of one of my quilting buddies (none of whom liked this quilt’s colours either!) and just did a simple straight line motif to hold the layers together.

I started by stitching in the ditch around each star and the blocks making up each star and the joining squares. Then I used my Line Tamer ruler to stitch straight lines joining the points of the stars to each other, then to create a ‘wonky’ star in the centre of each of the expanses of blue fabric. In the border, I did a large meandering stipple.

I was glad when it was done and I could fold it up.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Back:

This was a BIG quilt (68 x 83 inches), and HEAVY (the batting, I suspect — see my notes on the batting below the main pictures). It was a bit of an effort to quilt it as the drag and weight of the quilt did their best to usurp my attempts! I had it attached to my bungee cord system, and while that helped, it only mitigated against the weight of this quilt, not eliminating it completely.

Gwen had made the quilt for a ‘traditional’ friend, and wanted me to do cathedral windows in the 9-patch on-point squares and just outside them, which I did, but only after I’d stitched in the ditch around all the blocks and along the strips — this was a puffy quilt. She had suggested an infinity rope design for the long dividing strips. I had an old stencil for that pattern, but I couldn’t find a single marker in my extensive collection that held the markings enough to quilt with, or that didn’t fade into the fabrics, or that I could quilt along with the puffiness without going off the markings. I attempted some markings and quilted them in small sections, but to be honest it would’ve taken about 20 hours just to do it that way — that’s just not cost-effective! So I unpicked the small section I’d done that way and went with more ‘traditional’ feathers in the striped sections — the feathers go up one strip and down the next strip, alternating across the quilt.

As Gwen didn’t want this quilt too heavily quilted, I didn’t do anymore quilting in the main top, and for the border I only did a large semi-circle motif, using a 4″ clam shell ruler.

Gwen had initially started quilting this beast on her domestic sewing machine — I’m surprised and impressed that she got as far as she did. But she had trouble not only with the sheer bulk and weight of the quilt, but also choosing a colour that blended well and didn’t stand out. I auditioned several threads, settling on a light tan 80 wt thread that would hardly show (the colour blended well, and 80 wt thread almost disappears into the fabric), thus letting the fabrics and the quilt top design take centre stage.

It took more than 10 hours to quilt this quilt.

Back:

Now, about that batting…

The batting used in this quilt seemed to be a high-loft polyester batting. It was very heavy, and as a result caused a lot of drag. It was also very puffy and the fabric slipped on it, so I had to stitch in the ditch around almost everything to stabilise the quilt and stop any potential pleats and puckers before they could occur. Gwen had already pin basted the quilt for me, so that at least was done. She’d also stitched in the ditch down some of the strip seams, so that helped too.

With flatter battings (e.g. cotton, bamboo, wool), the fabric will often stick to the batting easily, thus requiring fewer basting pins and possibly not even requiring stitch in the ditch (though for a quilt this size, I would have stitched in the ditch around the major areas anyway).

Until I quilted this quilt, I hadn’t realised how much difference the batting makes to the quilting… now I know — a lot.

Threads used:

• Top: Wonderfil Deco-Bob (80 wt, colour DB 414)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide pre-wound bobbin (60 wt, white)

Back in February, I used a photo on fabric of my friend Char’s dog Cassie for one of my thread painting ‘portraits’ at Pam Holland’s class at Empty Spools, Asilomar (Pacific Grove, California). You can see the progress of this piece here: https://rhondabracey.com/2014/02/28/empty-spools-at-asilomar-thursday-27-february-2014/

I finished it off a few weeks go and sent it to Char, who lives near in Boston. A lot has happened since I made this piece — after many years of faithful companionship, Cassie has left Char’s family to play with all those dogs in the big dog park in the sky; Char has had a kidney transplant (within hours of notification, it was done and she’s healthier than she’s been in several decades); and she’s getting a new dog from her friend Sassie — the new dog was trained to be a guide dog for Sassie, but couldn’t cope with aircraft, so has had to be retired from that program.

I hope Char and her family like this memory of their beloved Cassie.

The back showing the thread stitching before I added some stiff interfacing and covered it with the same fabric as the background fabric

I have twin nieces in the US, both of whom are pregnant. No, they didn’t plan it that way! One is due in October; the other in December.

The one who is due in October has a thing for elephants for her nursery, so I decided to make a gender-neutral baby quilt for her in yellow, featuring elephants. And as I had enough fabric, I thought I’d make two at the same time, just in case the other twin got pregnant… And sure enough, she did! So now I’ll be taking two baby elephant quilts with me to the US in October.

I really enjoyed making these quilts — the pattern was super easy to put together (‘Little black quilt’ pattern available free from: http://www.meandmysisterdesigns.com/patterns/?id=9). Just 6.5 inch strips, with a reverse strip part way up, separated by two bands of sashing. I didn’t have quite enough of all the fabrics to use exactly the same in each quilt, so the fabric choices are slightly different in each. But that’s OK.

I also quilted them differently. For the first one, I made up a spiral motif with long U shapes, and outlined more elephants in the reversed panel; for the second I did all-over spirals, with bubbles/pebbles inside the reverse strip.

The charcoal grey elephants were fused on and then I blanket stitched around them in black. I stitched their ear shapes and toenails in yellow thread, and their eyes and tails in black thread.

Finally, I added a binding made up of multiple pieces of leftover yellow fabrics.

Oh, and the backing fabric was an alphabet print from the dressmaking poplins in Spotlight — it even has E for Elephant!

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Auditioning fabrics

Interestingly, almost every yellow fabric I had had dots, spots, or circles of some sort!

Quilt 1

Quilt 2

The back on both

Threads used:

• Top: Isacord (trilobal polyester, 40 wt, colour 0640 [a soft buttery yellow]); Robison-Anton (rayon, 40 wt, black)
• Bobbin: Fil-Tec Magna Glide pre-wound bobbin (white)