Rhonda Bracey: At Random

I think someone tried to use up some of their scraps for this quilt. Although there were some quite nice fabrics in this mishmash, the combinations just didn’t work for me. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason as to how the maker had put the fabrics together. The quilt looked OK from a distance, but up close it was hard on the eyes. And there was 1980s dusky green sheeting on the back.

How to quilt this ‘busy’ quilt? There was too much going on with the fabrics to do anything complex, so I went with a very simple 8-pointed wonky star in each block, after first stitching in the ditch around each block. I continued the theme in the sashing joins, stitching a little 8-pointed wonky star there too.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Glide ‘Mint’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 60345)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (white)

I liked the apparent simplicity of this quilt, yet when you deconstruct it to see how it was put together, it was quite complex. I also liked the colours.

How to quilt it?

1. I started by stitching in the ditch around the centre design, and around the borders.
2. Then I echo stitched a 1/2 inch from these lines, and about 3 inches out from the purple border’s seams.
3. I decided to let the centre design ‘pop’, so stitched quite heavily in the negative space, using my variation of McTavishing.
4. For the outer border, I decided to emulate the spikiness of the central design and marked points (orange chalk marks) to create the triangles.
5. At each outer border corner, I stitched a stylised leaf, though perhaps I should have attempted a ladybug (as you would’ve done, Joan C!).

I really liked the finished quilt and am very pleased with how I quilted it. I hope WAQA consider using this one as a raffle quilt.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Back:

Threads used:

• Top: Mettler Metrosene (polyester, 40 wt?, colour 781 [off-white used for most of the stitching on this quilt]; Gutermann (polyester, 40 wt?, colour 156 [red around the ladybugs]; Madeira (rayon, 40 wt, colour 1169 [green for the stitch-in-the-ditch in the border]; Gutermann (polyester, 40 wt?, colour 810 [purple around the flowers]
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (white)

Another ‘eye spy’ quilt, with lots of busy-ness going on in the fabric colours and patterns.

How to quilt it? Well, an all-over motif was the logical choice, in a thread colour (dark purple) that blended. I did what I’m calling a ‘Lady Liberty’ motif — start with an arc, then come back over the arc with upside-down V-shaped spikes, start the next arc, repeat…

You should be able to see what I mean by looking closely at the centre photo and the back.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Back”

Threads used:

• Top: Madeira (rayon, 40 wt, colour #1112 [dark purple])
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide pre-wound bobbin (lead gray)

This pretty pastel quilt had lots of conflicting motifs — ragged circles, embroidered cupcakes in squares, and a variety of colours.

How to quilt it?

1. Using a pastel variegated thread, I stitched in the ditch around all the blocks, including the inner squares of the cupcake blocks and around each cupcake.
2. Next were the circles — I echo stitched in between the existing spirals, then flowed off the spiral motif into a large meander around the circles.
3. I echo quilted the cupcakes, then did a heart/leaf motif in the surrounding strips.
4. With a soft green thread, I stitched a straight line in the border around the entire quilt, 1/2 inch from the border’s seam.
5. Finally, I used one of my Handi Quilt scallop/shell rulers and stitched the borders n that same green thread. I just did the echo quilting around the scallops free hand (no ruler or marking). I still haven’t figured out how to do corners with these rulers! Even if you mark the centres and work out how many half circles you need, the rulers still slip and go off-kilter <grrr>. So only one of the corners in the borders looks even vaguely right.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Back:

Threads used:

• Top: Silco (colour #SCM03 [variegated pastel]); Madeira (rayon, 40 wt, colour 1047 [soft green in border])
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (white)

Even though I’m not really a fan of pink, I quite liked this flying geese quilt. But how to quilt it?

I decided to go simple by stitching in the ditch around all the geese and their panels, and then stitching a border line about 1/2 an inch from each panel. And that was it. I could’ve done much more, but to be honest I though that what I’d done was enough to enhance the quilt. (BTW, I started using my Line Tamer ruler for stitching around each of the geese, but that took too long, so I just did it without the ruler for five of the panels — the centre photo below shows my freehand ‘straight’ lines without the ruler; however, I did use the ruler for the echo stitching around each panel.)

Surprisingly, the thread I used wasn’t pink but was a variegated thread of yellows and purples! It blended in well.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Wonderfil Mirage (30 wt, rayon?, colour SD 32)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (white)

This ‘eye spy’ quilt was SO busy with all those fabrics and colours that the simplest thing to do was a big meandering stipple! No stitch in the ditch at all — I just started from about the centre and worked my way out and around until it was all done.

I used a variegated thread in multiple shades of purple and it worked well, I thought.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Harmony ‘Violets’ (40 wt, variegated cotton, colour 14072)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (lead gray)

I started by stitching in the ditch along all the seams in this quilt. Then to make the colours pop, I stitched ‘wonky’ straight lines in the black bars and a sort of squared off spiral in the large and small on-point squares.

For the border, I did a squared off open headband motif.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Glide ‘Black’ (40wt trilobal polyester, colour 11001)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (black)

This ‘Chinese coin’ quilt just called out for some straight ‘modern-style’ stitching across it, so that’s what I did after first stitching in the ditch around each of the dark borders. My Line Tamer ruler got a decent workout on this quilt!

I liked the final effect of the dark burgundy thread on the lighter fabrics.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Robison-Anton (rayon, 40 wt, maroon/burgundy colour of some sort)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (lead gray)

This quilt just didn’t ‘sing’ to me and I took ages trying to figure out how to quilt it. It sat on the back of a sofa for a couple of weeks first, with me hoping to get inspired every time I passed it. It wasn’t to be…

I knew I’d have to stitch in the ditch around all the scrap fabric squares, so I started with that. The empty white spaces were then quite puffy, so I did a simple point-to-point star effect, but still the middles were too puffy, so I did an eight-pointed star inside each one of the big white spaces.

Not my favorite quilt to quilt, and it was BIG too.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Mettler Metrosene Plus (polyester, colour 0781)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (white)