Rhonda Bracey: At Random

How to quilt this very geometric quilt? I wanted to do something round to counteract the points, but also wanted to incorporate some of the triangular shapes. I made up a new motif that I’ll call ‘Windmill’, ‘cos the ‘blades’ are shaped like those on windmills seen across the farmlands of Australia. It starts with a central arc, surrounded by the windmill blades, then a really big arc to encompass the motif.

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Threads used:

• Top: Robison-Anton ‘Earthen Tan’ (40 wt, rayon, colour 2569)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (light tan)

A baseball fan is going to love this quilt! The fabrics were so busy, I just went with a simple large meandering stipple in red.

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Threads used:

• Top: Floriani (40 wt, rayon, colour PF188)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (red)

I hadn’t touched my quilting machine (Sweet Sixteen) for several weeks, so my first foray back into Community Quilts was a simple ‘muscle memory’ motif that I’ve done many times before.

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Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Harmony ‘Driftwood’ (40 wt, cotton, colour 14069)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (light tan)

I’m not really a fan of these colours, but together I thought they worked really well. To keep with the simple shapes, I decided to quit vertically in the three strips on the sides, and horizontally for the three middle strips. Each line is about 1 inch apart. Yes, I used my Line Tamer ruler for this!

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Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Affinity ‘Carolina’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 60292)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (white)

To counterbalance the rectangular shapes in this quilt, I decided to quilt large circles with a smaller inner circle coming off at a tangent.

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Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Affinity ‘Carolina’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 60292)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (white)

This was a BIG eye spy quilt for a kid, with each ‘jar’ containing some sort of bug or other animal (I had to photograph it on its side as it would’v e dragged on the ground otherwise). I decided to just do a simple large meandering stipple as there was so much ‘busy-ness’ in this quilt that anything else would’ve been overkill.

(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)

For this quilt, I just used a simple variation on the ‘open headband‘ motif, adding a slightly curved hook to the point of the inner arc.

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Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Glide ‘Linen’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 10WG1)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (white)

I took my quilting inspiration from the curves in the border fabric, following those curves in that border, and then using a similar curve sort of on the diagonal in the main part of the quilt.

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Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Affinity ‘Carolina’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 60292)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (white)

Such a simple quilt, but really effective with the scrappy blue fabrics tat toned so nicely. I quilted straight line ‘X’s cut in half with straight lines that followed the square shapes as I didn’t think it needed a lot of heavy quilting.

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Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Affinity ‘Carolina’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 60292)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (white)

The last quilt of the latest batch of community quilts — a lovely bright ‘I spy’ quilt made up of fruit and vegetable fabrics.

I quilted it with a continuous line motif based on an inner spiral and outer ‘fingers’, using a variegated thread in yellow, green and purple.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Superior King Tut ‘Passion’ (40 wt, cotton, colour 931)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (red)