As I've mentioned, I'm quite a new quilter, I was starting to develop this fear that I was only going to be a piecer, not a quilter and that I would never finish things! However, I've really loved quilting my latest project, it's only small about 28 inches square, the fabrics are gorgeous batiks and the design is entirely triangles. I chose some variegated cotton thread for both sides and got going, first of all, I picked out a couple of features of the design with straight line quilting, but for the first time, not in the ditch, I did that for a couple of features and decided doing the whole thing like that wasn't going to be pleasing, so I had to figure out what to do with the rest. There were 4 squares (actually made up of 2 QSTs) in the middle of the design requiring quilting and I used a free motion pattern I don't know the name of, basically you draw a tear drop, then add 2 lines inside it, then move to start the next, it means some thread snipping, but it filled those squares nicely. Then I had 4 large triangular areas in each corner, each made up of different sized triangles, I free motioned spirals in the middle of some of them, then stippled around them and filled in some remaining areas with stippling. No pictures today, I'm half way through sewing the binding on, I've also put a hanging sleeve on and made my own label.
What I learnt was, regular thread makes things a lot simpler and not to be afraid to try things, I thought I'd have to draw the spirals, but I had a go and it worked out. In most places the stitching is really even, making someone who looked at it think I had a stitch regulator, which I don't. I'm now excited about going back to another project which is waiting to be quilted - though I can't see how I'm going to avoid the invisible thead this time, it's a scrappy quilt, with a wide range of colours, it's also got some fairly intricate designs on the border and background fabric that need to be outlined, I guess this is going to take me some time!
Anne