Rhonda Bracey: At Random

I’m not sure if I like this quilt or not, but it doesn’t matter as it’s not mine! I quite like green/purple colour combinations, but I’m not sure that they worked too well in this arrangement, especially with the scrappy centres.

How to quilt it? Stitch in the ditch of course around each block, in matching lime green and purple threads. But what to do with that big expanse of dark green background fabric? I was tempted just to do a simple meandering stipple, but eventually decided on an echoed leaf motif, filled with pebbles in the empty spaces between the leaves. It was the first time I’d tried this motif and I liked how it fills the empty spaces really well. It was also very easy to do. But it did use a lot of thread — I think I went through about three 230-yd bobbins just doing the background.

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Threads used:

• Top: Robison-Anton ‘Ming’ (40 wt, rayon, colour 2322); Robison-Anton (40 wt, rayon, purple of some sort); Fil-Tec Affinity ‘Forest’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 60293 [variegated deep greens])
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (black)

There was SO much white space in this large quilt that it was almost a wholecloth quilt. The fabrics and colours in the borders sort of indicated that the eventual home for this quilt might be a men’s homeless shelter that the Community Quilts program donates quilts to, but then there was that very strange bald woman in a pinafore holding a teddy bear in the middle! What was up with that? And then there were those strange scrappy log cabin blocks in the corners, which seemed out of place with the rest of the fabrics and design.

Anyhow… how to quilt it?

Stitching in the ditch was a given around the centre block, the appliqued woman, and the border. But what to do with that enormous amount of white space? I thought of rounded shapes like feathers and headband variations, but that didn’t fit with the geometric nature of the borders. My next thought was a squared meandering stipple, but that didn’t seem right either. Then I thought about bricks. So I measured and marked lines and points for layers of bricks and mortar. But still the empty areas were quite puffy, so I needed some sort of pattern inside the bricks to tame the puffiness.

I decided to do fairly close straight lines in the bricks closest to the ‘window’ in the middle, thus creating the illusion of an old-style brick building with different bricks or stones for the window surround. But I knew that continuing that through all the bricks would not only take a lot of time, but would also tighten the quilt up too much with the quilting. So for the remaining bricks I stitched free-form shapes, emulating stones (I hope!).

For the borders, I just stitched straight lines about an inch or so apart. I didn’t use any rulers or markings for these straight lines or the ones inside the bricks near the ‘window’. I echo quilted the appliqued woman and teddy bear and then stippled around her, adding straight lines (in a variegated red) to the red frame around this block.

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Back:

Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Glide ‘Cream’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 20001) — used for most of this quilt; Robison -Anton ‘Platinum’ (40 wt, rayon, colour 2571) — used for the stipplling in the centre block and the borders; Mettler Poly Sheen Multi (40 wt, polyester, colour 9924 [variegated reds]) — used for the red frame
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (white)

This was an odd quilt. Odd shapes, odd colour combinations. (As always, my opinion only! I don’t make them — I just quilt them.)

How to quilt it? Well, for starters, I stitched in the ditch around all the dark shapes. I was thinking of doing something geometric in the pink areas, but I only had three small spools of various pale pink threads from different manufacturers, so I decided to do an all-over motif so that it wasn’t obvious where I changed threads as each spool ran out. I mostly did a combination of feathers and spirals.

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Threads used:

• Top: Gutermann Sulky variegated pale pink ( 40 wt, rayon, colour 2100); Robison-Anton (40 wt, rayon, pale pink — no idea of the colour as the label went missing long ago); Madeira Rayon (40 wt, rayon, colour 11120)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin

This quilt was a real challenge. It had a high-loft polyester batting in it, which, while it may make the quilt very warm to snuggle under, is an absolute sod to quilt as it’s SO puffy. However, the maker had hand basted it, so it stayed together reasonably well. But even with that, there’s no way you can keep it from puckering, except by quilting the life out of it.

To control the puffiness, I stitched in the ditch (in a pale blue thread) around all the blocks and borders, and then around and within all the appliqued centres of each block. But still there was a lot of puffiness in those centres and in the borders. I decided to leave the plain blue border and the appliqued centres puffy so that they remain very tactile.

For the outer border, I just did a large meandering stipple in the blue thread to hold the layers together. This was a ‘busy’ fabric, so there was no point in dong anything very clever in this outer border. Besides, the polyester batting wanted to escape so I had to stitch in such a way to hold it in and to not cause puckers in the border.

For the blocks, I decided to beat the puffiness in the white areas into submission by McTavishing around each appliqued centre. It took quite a bit of time, but I think it was worth it.

Did I mention it was big?

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Still very puffy even after stitching in the ditch around everything

Threads used:

• Top: Robison-Anton ‘Paris blue’ (40 wt, rayon, colour 2283); Wonderfil Silco (40wt, white, colour SC03)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (white)