Rhonda Bracey: At Random

At first glance, I thought this scrappy quilt was too busy, but on stepping back from it a little, I realised how cleverly constructed it was with the offsetting of the lights and darks creating various optical illusions.

I started by stitching in the ditch along all the diagonal lines, then filled in the dark parts only with a large ‘n’ and ‘u’ stitching pattern, keeping about a half inch between the up and down strokes of the motif. I didn’t use rulers — I just eyeballed the distance, so some are a little closer or further apart than half an inch, but the overall effect is of similarly spaced parallel lines.

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Threads used:

• Top: Isacord (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour FB4133)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (lead gray)

For this batik quilt, I used a bright yellow thread to stitch large overlapping spirals on the main part of the quilt, and large ‘ribbon candy’ in the piano keys border. I left the inner and outer borders unstitched.

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Threads used:

• Top: Isacord (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 0600)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (red)

To counteract the rigidity of the horizontal stripes in this bright jelly roll quilt, I decided to go a bit more organic by stitching all over with circles (aka bubbles or pebbles) of various sizes, in a fluoro orange thread. I left the border unstitched.

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Back:

Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Glide ‘Neon Orange'(40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 90811)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (red)

For this small scrappy quilt, I decided to let the ‘on point’ squares pop by only stitching in the white space. I started by stitching in the ditch around all the squares and the borders, then did elongated curved ‘S’ shapes up and down and across to create the illusion of flowers or cathedral windows in the white space. I left the two inner borders unstitched, and did a large meandering stipple in the outer border.

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Back:

Threads used:

• Top: Fil-tec Glide ‘Cream’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 20001)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (light tan)

I decided to follow the geometric nature of this quilt made from some lovely batiks and stitched an all-over design of overlapping squares and rectangles. I didn’t use rulers, so not a single line is straight, even though they all look it from a distance.

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Back:

Threads used:

• Top: Isacord (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour FB3040)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (white)

How to quilt this quilt? While I decided, I stitched in the ditch along all the zigzag lines for the verticals of the ‘hexagons’ created from the half strips. Then, because the quilt top design was so geometric, I decided to quilt circles. But they aren’t real circles — in fact, not one would meet the criteria for a real circle, but they give the illusion of circles.

I didn’t use any rulers for the circles — instead, I did very curved ‘S’ shapes coming close the centre point of each edge, then crossing in the middle of a join to do the other side of the ‘S’ on the other side of each hexagon, all the way to the top edge, then back down. If you look closely at the stitching you’ll see how I did that. It was pretty quick, and HOURS quicker than using rulers! The effect was still the same, and as this quilt isn’t for a show, these simple circles fitted the bill perfectly.

And I liked how the stitch-in-the-ditch stitching set off the circles, too.

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Back:

Threads used:

• Top: Superior Rainbows (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 818)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (white)

The busy-ness of this big scrappy quilt didn’t lend itself to custom quilting, so I quilted it with a single-line, all-over ‘open headband‘ motif using a variegated thread.

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Back:

Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Harmony ‘Autumn’ (40 wt, cotton, colour 14081)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (light tan)

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!

(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)