Rhonda Bracey: At Random

There are some Community Quilt tops I get that I just love. And some I like a lot. Some others — not so much… This was one that I actually disliked (with no offence to the person who put the top together). I didn’t like the colours, I didn’t like the prints (Holly Hobby [!] and cow udders combined with tropical leaves and pastel flowers, anyone?), and I didn’t like the fabrics (cheap poplin, some linen, some curtain fabric, as well as some older cottons with no redeeming features at all). And it was wonky.

To beat the wonkiness into submission and to not overpower the quilt with any more ‘busyness’, I just decided to do a reasonably close meandering stipple in a variegated thread in mauve, olive, and khaki that sort of matched some of the colours. Unfortunately, the thread was a 12 wt thread that I hadn’t used before, so it had a few breakages along the way and caused me a bit of grief.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Wonderfil Fruitti (12 wt; Egyptian cotton; colour # FT 14)
• Bobbin: Bobbinfil (white)

Another quilt using yellow thread! I’m on a roll…

This one was a cute bee and honey quilt. Not only were there bees on the front, there were bees all over the back too. But how to quilt it?

I could have gone for stylised bees or flowers, but having never done bees before, I thought that would be a bit much. Flowers? Meh. And then I saw the little hives. They gave me inspiration for doing my geometric, ‘flat end’ version of the ‘open headband‘ motif. I was pleased with how it turned out.

Again, this was an all-over, edge-to-edge design that puts me into that ‘zen zone’ 😉

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Back:

Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Glide ‘Mango’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour #80116)
• Bobbin: Bobbinfil (white)

This quilt had little tiny leaf motif fabrics, and a small floral print in the border, along with the tiny aqua squares. I decided to use my ‘open headband‘ variation of adding a petal-like sweep to one of the ‘headbands’, emulating the petals of the flowers in the border.

Again, this was an all-over, edge-to-edge quilting design.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Glide ‘Mango’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour #80116)
• Bobbin: Bobbinfil (white)

Ooo! A dramatic yellow, black and white quilt top! How to quilt it??? There were some floral and leaf fabrics in there, as well as geometrics. I immediately dismissed the idea of a floral or curly leaf motif and went for geometrics. Should I just do straight line ruler work a la modern quilts, or something else?

I still wanted to do something similar to quilting on modern quilts but not plain lines, so I opted for a straight line stipple that crossed to form rectangles and ‘sort of’ squares. No rulers or markings — I just eyeballed it and went for it, starting in the centre and working my way out.

This is one of those all-over, edge-to-edge, single line quilting motifs that I love doing (I get into a zen zone), and I thought it worked well on this quilt.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Isacord 40 wt trilobal polyester (I don’t have the empty thread spool, so can’t give the colour, but it was sort of a mango yellow)
• Bobbin: Bobbinfil (white)

This was a BIG quilt. I didn’t realise how big until I started quilting it. Instead of doing an all-over design, it decided to feature feathers in the light blocks, leaves and curls in the green areas, more feathers in the light border, and curls in the other border. As a result, this quilt took well over 6 hours to quilt. Had I stuck with an all-over design, it might have taken less than half the time. But I was happy I spent the extra time on it, as I think the quilting complements the quilt well.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Back:

Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Glide ‘Sea Foam’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour #97494)
• Bobbin: Bobbinfil (white)

This one was very similar to Community Quilt #68, so I quilted it in the same way, using an all-over flame design in a bright orange for the main top, and just emphasising the large white dot paths in the border in black.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Glide ‘Neon Orange’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour #90811), and a plain black rayon from Robison-Anton
• Bobbin: Gutermann Skala U121 240 (black)

What a cheery quilt this was! Bright colours, complemented by the white. I suspect a young girl/teenager will love it. In keeping with the bright cheerful colours, I quilted it with an all-over design variation on ‘open headbands‘, in a bright fluoro orange thread.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Glide ‘Neon Orange’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour #90811)
• Bobbin: Bobbinfil (white)

Another fun and bright quilt for a child, this time featuring characters from the movie ‘Cars’, and fabrics to match. As there was a flame motif on one of the fabrics, I decided to quilt the main top in bright orange flames.

I really like the large border fabric and only quilted black outlines around the heaviest of the white dotted lines — just enough to hold the layers together.

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Back

Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Glide ‘Neon Orange’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour #90811), and a plain black rayon from Robison-Anton
• Bobbin: Wonderfil Deco-Bob (80 wt, colour #DB 205 [deep red])

What a bright eye-spy quilt this was! Whichever kid gets it will have hours of fun identifying all the animals, characters, etc. on it. Of course, being so bright and ‘busy’, and as it will likely be well loved by a child, I decided to keep the quilting design to a basic all-over ‘open headband‘ motif, but in a matching bright fluoro orange thread!

Even the backing fabric was bright — red, with the names of animals printed on it.

Click on a photo to view it larger.

Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Glide ‘Neon Orange’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour #90811)
• Bobbin: Wonderfil Deco-Bob (80 wt, colour #DB 205 [deep red])

I quilted this quilt just before I went to the US, but didn’t have time to photograph it or write up the blog post for it then.

I love this quilt! The bright coordinating colours were just ‘me’. And I had the perfect thread for it too — King Tut ‘Passion Fruit’ — a blend of yellow, purple, and green. The quilt needed to shine, so I just decided to do an all-over funky, floral open headband variation in keeping with the floral fabric in the border and the centres. (This quilt was perfectly square too, so many thanks to the maker.)

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Back:

Threads used:

• Top: Superior’s King Tut ‘Passion Fruit’ (40 wt, cotton; colour #931)
• Bobbin: Bobbinfil (cotton, white)