I went to the monthly Open Sew Day at the county building, sponsored by the local Lakeside Quilt Guild. I knew they'd have nice big tables where I could work on sandwiching and basting this quilt. I don't have the space to do it at home, and am not planning on going to Quilt Camp in March. So this worked out well! Saw some familiar faces there with Lynn and Liz, and Marilyn, and Glennys--many of them from the October Quilt Retreat.
I used a Hobbs Silk Batting for this quilt -- yes--it's a special anniversary! It's very light and airy batt, and supposedly very warm. It should crinkle up like cotton after it's washed. ;-) The good quality quilting fabric is what makes it heavy (coupled with all those safety pins) -- but not bulky.
There must be 500 safety pins holding the sandwich together now.
I need to do a little re-hab on the borders. I didn't do my usual measure down the center, then cut the borders to that length because I knew the borders would be mitered--and how would you measure for that? Turns out-- you really do need to measure down the middle and cut borders accordingly. There was a certain amount of excess fullness at the edges. I can take some of the excess up by re-doing the miters at the corners, but I should probably just re-cut them to the proper length as measured down the middle.
I think I can still go ahead and quilt the star in the middle, get that stabilized, then deal with the borders.
Now --How to quilt it?
And so it begins ... The quilting stage.
I started in on the darkest tines of the star with the tangerine thread. It shows up nicely.
I was using a 16 Jeans needle, but switched to an 18 after breaking 2 needles.
I think I'll have to find a different path around the star. It's difficult working from the center -- now that that part is done, maybe it will be easier to do the other diamonds?
I think just "cathedral-window" the diamonds in the star. Not very inventive, but effective for this type of quilt. So far, I have not been able to settle of thread colors for the star. Should I use invisible thread? Or choose something that will blend with the warm and cool colors? They are all complementary, so I could even be wild about mixing warm with cool colors in the threads. Then I have to figure out my path across the quilt, to maximize efficiency, and minimize the turns ... It's all a part of project planning a quilt from start to finish.
As for the corner and side blocks, I thought I would echo the applique flowers and vines. If I used a nice multi-colored thread, it will show up on the black, but not be so over-powering as to take away from the applique.
Then I'll have to fix the borders, and then decide something for that space as well. Lots of time to think about it!
