Raspberry Cordial Quilt Finished

 

 The Raspberry Cordial Quilt is finished!

This is a lap-size quilt made with leftovers from Unca Ray's Red Barn Quilt.

After I finished it, I liked it so much I decided to make a smaller one for me.

 Detail of the of the blocks and the quilting.

 

 

Since this was a smaller quilt, I did the quilting on my little domestic home sewing machine (as opposed to the Tin Lizzie long arm down at It's Sew Rite).   I tried marking the quilt sandwich with  a chalk duster and a stencil.  It looked that that would be just the thing :

 First, I traced the pantograph pattern onto freezer paper.  

 

Then I "dry-stitched" the paper with no thread in the machine.

This served 2 purposes :  A) It helped me learn the pattern and get it into muscle memory.

B) It served to punch holes into the paper to make it a suitable stencil :

Then I used the Quilt Pounce to chalk the stencil design onto the quilt top.

The first pass seemed to work pretty well.  I was able to see the pattern for free-motionstitching as it was chalked onto the quilt top.  However, by the 2nd pass, much of the chalk had disappeared, or rather gone up into the air.  I could feel it in my lungs, and could no longer see it on the quilt top.  

For the 2nd and 3rd passes, there were many places I had to re-chalk the pattern with a chalk marker at the sewing machine.  By the 4th pass, I was just making it up as I went along.    Marking this way would have worked better on a smaller project, I think.    Marking is always a pain int he patootie.  That's why the free-motion designs have such an appeal.

Here's the message I found in a Dove Chocolate the day I finished this quilt. 

This just make me smile big-time!    ;-)

Pattern : Band Together by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr. This pattern appeared in the Feb 2010 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting.

Batting : Hobbs 80/20 Cotton Poly Black Heirloom Batting

Pantograph :  "Wind Water" Pantograph by Kathie James.