This cute panel quilt of Australian animals and birds was easy to quilt — it was small, had obvious motifs to stitch around, and obvious designs in the borders to follow. I think I finished it in under an hour.
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Another BIG quilt, this time a jelly roll strip quilt in lovely blue batiks.
How to quilt it? To counter the straight lines of the strips, I decided on an old favourite — an all-over spiral design. I think I can do that one in my sleep! I left the purple border unstitched, and in the blue border I stitched Vs/Ws, but instead of points, I squared off the bases to match the design in the fabric.
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Compared to the most recent quilts I’ve done, this was a tiny one 😉
Again, a scrappy quilt, this time set off with yellow sashings and borders. As it was such a busy quilt, I decided to keep it simple, stitching wonky stars in each block (using my Line Tamer ruler) and mountains (or Vs or Ws) in the borders.
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Another big scrappy quilt, this time set off with black. I decided to keep with the geometric theme of this quilt and so quilted it all over with a squared-off meander using an aqua thread. I liked the end result, both the motif and the thread colour I chose.
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This was a HUGE quilt, and it had been partially hand quilted by its creator. My job was to finish the quilting, which took many hours (especially the McTavishing in the large border on three sides). I started by stitching in the ditch around each block, border, and applique piece that wasn’t already hand stitched, then stitched various quilting motifs to fill in the backgrounds of the borders and the unstitched blocks. I still can’t figure out the connection of the horizontal angel in the waves with the other blocks…
Note: In the photo of the whole quilt, one of the borders is folded over the clothesline to prevent the quilt dragging on the ground, and the quilt is sideways on the clothesline too. It was a big quilt!
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This big log cabin quilt was created with some lovely autumnal scrappy fabrics.
How to quilt it? I stitched in the ditch around the large blocks first, to stabilise it. Then countered the geometric nature of the log cabins with large spirals in a variegated thread, morphing into squared-off headbands, and then into open headbands. So there are three quilting motifs in this quilt. In the border I echo stitched a straight line (using the Line Tamer ruler) about half an inch from the seam line.
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This bright colourful quilt was lots of white space, some applique, and a patterned fabric that looked like it was applique.
How to quilt it? I started by stitching in the ditch around all the blocks, applique pieces, and borders to stabilise it. I then echo quilted the appliqued and fake applique pieces, and did a stipple in the white space behind the fake applique blocks. In the setting triangles, I stitched a very simple fleur de lis type of motif, and then just some wavy lines in the borders. I left all the green sashing strips unstitched.
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How to quilt this bright quilt?
I decided on stylised flowers, starting with a couple of arcs, then tracking back with rounded ‘petals’ and an echo, before starting a new ‘flower’. This is a variation on the open headband motif that I’ve done many times before.
The thread was a variegated pink, even though it’s called ‘Mauve’, which is a light purple where I come from!
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This large quilt was full of autumnal colours, and a striking piece of backing fabric.
I was almost tempted to turn the quilt over and follow the design of the backing fabric for the quilting. However, I decided not to, instead stitching in the ditch along all the diagonal seams, then stitching large looping ribbon candy in the lighter coloured diagonal bands, leaving the darker bands unstitched.
For the border, I emulated the ribbon candy stitching really large loops of it to hold the layers together. The border fabric was very busy, so there was no point in doing anything too elaborate in it as it would be lost.
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What a pretty quilt this was! I loved the colour combination of aqua and grey. And looking at it closely, it was made with a simple pattern I’ve used in a couple of recent quilts (https://rhondabracey.com/2015/09/07/baby-quilt-kaffe-fassett-fabrics/ and https://rhondabracey.com/2015/09/28/baby-quilt-with-tonga-treasures-fabric/).
How to quilt it? I wanted to something not quite floral, but not geometric either. I thought about big spirals, then decided to do a motif I haven’t done for a while — a spiral that comes out with rounded arms. It looks a bit like a flower, but it isn’t; it could also be a stylised Aboriginal motif. Anyhow, I thought it worked well with the quilt top design and colours.
For the border, I continued with the aqua thread and the rounded arms from the main motif, stitching elongated ‘u’ shapes of various widths.
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Rhonda Bracey: At Random 