Rhonda Bracey: At Random

I volunteered to do some quilting at the Community Quilts stand at the annual QuiltWest exhibition, and in the few hours I was there, I quilted a complete quilt and about half of another one, before I was called away to do White Glove and take-down duties.

I finished the other half of the partially completed one this past weekend. At the Community Quilts stand, I was using a Bernina and some supplied thread (a soft variegated pink of unknown composition, though I suspect cotton). Once at home, I used my Handi Quilter Sweet Sixteen machine to finish the quilting and a similar variegated pink thread, though from a different manufacturer.

As this quilt was very busy with lots of floral fabrics, I decided to quilt it using a ‘flower’ version of my ‘open headbands‘ motif — same as that motif, but instead of a curved line for the second arc, I just add in some petal-like mini-arcs, giving a floral effect (see the picture of the back of the quilt for details). I was talking to people as I was quilting so I wanted to make sure I was using a design for which I had a lot of ‘muscle memory’ so that I could carry on a conversation without worrying too much about the quilting.

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Back:

Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec ‘Affinity’ (40 wt trilobal polyester, colour 60149 ‘Mauve’)
• Bottom: unknown beige cotton (at Community Quilts stand) and Fil-Tec Magna Glide pre-wound bobbin (white)

I started and finished this one at the Community Quilts stand at QuiltWest, so I was talking about my design choices and how I did the FMQ’ing as I was quilting it. That was an interesting experience. Even more interesting, Sandra, the lady who made the quilt top, came and watch me work on it too, then came back when it was finished to get a photo of it.

I can’t tell you what threads I used as I didn’t write them down. But as I was at the Craft Fair doing this, I was using a Bernina 750 Quilters Edition sewing machine, not my usual Sweet 16.

Because I was demonstrating, I needed to do a design that I had a lot of ‘muscle memory’ for, so I did my open headbands. That way, I didn’t need to concentrate on my quilting so much if I was talking. And because the fabrics in this quilt were so ‘busy’, I didn’t want to do a complex design to detract from the fabrics.

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Sandra and her quilted quilt!

Back:

This pretty quilt was almost perfectly square, which was some achievement considering the triangular/bias blocks in the border! How to quilt it?

I started by stitching in the ditch around every stinkin’ coloured piece of fabric… Yep. Every one.

Then I auditioned some designs by putting a plastic sheet over the top of the quilt and marking on it with a marker, erasing, marking again, etc. until I got something I thought would work. The borders were always going to be cross-hatched to match the fabric seams and the angles of the little coloured squares in them, so that was easy. And I decided not to stitch the coloured fabrics, just the white space.

For the main star blocks, I did all sorts of things — 3-petal half flowers with a curlicue in the centre of the central petals; art deco style triangular type things in the squares (some facing one, some facing out), then finally big art deco style lines in the odd shapes.

I used my Line Tamer ruler for the cross-hatching in the borders, and for the very large outlines of the odd-shaped diamonds; everything else was free motion, including the stitch in the ditch straight lines.

I quite liked the overall effect.

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Threads used:

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

How to quilt this large quilt? I started by stitching in the ditch around all the blocks to stabilise it. Then I tackled the sashing strips and border as the fabric design ‘told’ me to do vertical stripey things. I added a spiral at each green corner join.

For the main blocks, I did a 3-petal flower type thing in the cream triangles. And then I came to a screeching halt. What to do in the 3-strip centre blocks?

I decided to alternate the motif, doing a curvy matrix in one, then a star in the other. The star goes from mid-point to opposite corner, to opposite mid-point etc. and I think it was quite effective. I used a soft green thread for these centres.

No rulers or marking pens were harmed in quilting this quilt 😉 It was ALL free motion. Even the stitch in the ditch… I’m getting much better at almost straight lines on my Sweet Sixteen.

This was a big quilt. I think it took about 6 hours to quilt.

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The back:

Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec ‘Glide’ (40 wt trilobal polyester, colour ‘Cream’ #20001); Madeira Rayon (40 wt rayon, colour 1047)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna-Glide pre-wound bobbin (white)

This smallish scrappy quilt had a lot going on — different blocks, various colours and shapes. How to quilt it?

I started by stitching in the ditch around each block in a dark brown to match the sashing. Then I did the same to each diamond in the border, using a tan poly-cotton thread. Then I added detail to the border free stitching ‘straight’ lines from the centre point of each triangle to the centre point of the join, creating a chevron effect.

Next, I tackled the heart blocks, McTavishing around each heart in an off-white/cream thread. I left the hearts unstitched so they would puff. I also left the dark brown sashing unstitched. Then I changed to a variegated brown thread and did cathedral windows in the 9-patch blocks. Finally, I did some large and small stars in the centre 9-patch blocks, also in the variegated brown thread.

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Centre block:

Border:

The back:

Threads used:

• Top: Dark brown: Robison-Anton ‘Best Brown’ (40 wt rayon, colour 2566); Variegated brown: Fil-Tec Affinity ‘Brunette’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 60291); Cream: Superior Masterpiece (50 wt cotton, colour 151); Blue: Isacord (40 wt trilobal polyester, colour FB3842); Tan: Rasant (40 wt poly/cotton, colour 0862)
• Bottom: Fil-tec Magna Glide pre-wound (white)

This was a big, pretty quilt. All those soft pastels that matched perfectly, even though when you look closely at the fabrics, you’d wonder how checks and florals and other patterns would go together. But they did.

I quilted this with a variegated pastels cotton thread (and generated a LOT of lint in the process).

My initial thought was to do square and round spirals in alternating blocks, but I ended up doing something more rounded — a variation on the ‘open headband’ motif with flower shapes around each inner arc. I stitched in the ditch around all the blocks first.

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The back:

Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec ‘Harmony’ (40 wt cotton; ‘Spring’ colour 14062)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide pre-wound bobbin (white)

This big quilt offered its share of challenges. It was nice and square, which was great. But the cream fabric used for the sashings and border was very hard, thick, and stiff as it was impregnated with gold flecks — I suspect it wasn’t a ‘quilting cotton’. As a result, all the needle punches through the three layers created fairly large holes, which I hope will close up and ‘self heal’ over time.

How to quilt it? Well, the rich colours of the fabrics in the blocks and the gold flecks in the cream fabric lent itself to gold metallic thread, but I ended up only using that for the outer straight lines around each block as I had trouble with the metallic thread. So I used an ‘old gold’ rayon thread for the in-the-ditch stitching, the inner straight echo lines for each block, and for the cross-hatching inside the centre of each block, which followed the cross-hatching in the pattern of this centre fabric.

I decided to leave the rich paisley fabrics unquilted, instead stitching the sashings and borders in a fairly dense spiral motif, in a matching cream thread (though it’s called ‘Khaki’ on the thread cone!).  That way the blocks ‘pop’ and add a little puffiness to the quilt.

While I was quilting this quilt, I set up my suspension system and it worked a treat in reducing drag.

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Threads used:

• Top: Robison-Anton (40 wt, rayon, ‘Old Gold’ colour 2201; used inside the blocks including the cross hatching in the centres of each block); Fil-tec Glisten (metallic, ‘Gold’ colour 60088; only used for the outer straight lines around the large blocks) ; Fil-tec Glide (40 wt, trilobal polyester, ‘Khaki’ colour 24525; used in the sashings and borders)
• Bottom: Fil-tec Magna Glide pre-wound bobbin (white)

I loved this quilt! If you’d told me about a quilt in aqua/teal blue and tans, I’d have said ‘Yuck!’, but I just loved how these colours played so well together.

It was a big quilt, with lots of rectangles of various sizes, and multiple coordinating fabrics, some of which were curvy lines with dots/circles in them. That became my overall theme for quilting this quilt.

Because the edges were all so straight, I decided NOT to use any rulers for any of the quilting. Even the so-called ‘straight’ lines in the sashing strips are wonky free motion lines. That was a deliberate choice. I wanted the quilting on this quilt to be organic and not to rigidly follow the straight lines of the blocks. I quilted a different motif in each block — some with wonky lines, some with circles, some curvy lines, some with a combination… I repeated some motifs (e.g. the rectangular spiral), but avoided two motifs the same in any one block or two the same next to each other. I used the same soft blue thread throughout.

For the border, I did big loopy things, sort of like figures of eight/infinity symbols, but without any crossing lines.

It took me about 10 hours to quilt this quilt, running at 50% speed on my Sweet Sixteen for all the stitching (and with very few thread breakages – that might be because I used a new size 18 needle). Had I been using rulers, it would’ve taken much longer.

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Threads used:

• Top: Robison-Anton (40 wt, rayon, colour: ‘Sprite’)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Glide pre-wound in white

This small dark quilt was a challenge. How to quilt it to enhance the depth of the colours, while not overpowering the quilt with the quilting?

The first decision was what thread to use. I didn’t want a very dark thread as that would’ve hidden the quilting, so I opted for a variegated thread in rich orange, copper, ginger, red, and peach tones.

I started by doing straight line quilting from the piano key border into the adjoining row of blocks, following the existing seam lines of those blocks. But when I looked at the other side’s piano key border, it didn’t marry up with the seam lines of those blocks, so I had to abandon that idea for the other side. What to do?

I’d seen quilts that blended one motif into another but hadn’t tried it myself, so I sort of did that. The motif I used for the blocks next to the straight line blocks was a curved open headband motif with squared off edges, and then the one for the blocks and piano key border adjacent to that was a full circular spiral design, thus varying the quilting from one edge to the other from straight lines to circular lines.

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I loved the colours in this quilt! And as soon as I pulled it out of the bag, the cream centre just screamed ‘McTavishing!’ to me, so that’s what I did. I also stitched around the main parts of the appliqued flowers in the centre to make them ‘pop’ even more.

I left the dark green borders unquilted, and did my quick and easy cathedral windows motif in the checkerboard borders using a variegated orange/copper/pink/ginger/peach rayon thread.

I was really pleased with how this quilt looked after I’d quilted it.

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Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Glide ‘Cream’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 20001) and Wonderfil Mirage (30 wt, rayon, colour SD31)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Glide pre-wound bobbin (white)