Quilting to Plan and Planning to Quilt

Although I still don’t have a quilt finish to share, I’m getting closer. One Cousin Kim and I basted All You Need is Love on Wednesday, I began the quilting process on Thursday.

Here’s a picture of the top again so you will understand what I’m referencing.

The thread I’m using is a barely-there pale green cotton. It’s so pale that it looks almost white on the front.  So, on Thursday I started out by quilting the center panel with a basic stipple. 

Then I switched to a dark blue thread and quilted the navy border around the center panel with lines. They’re not visible, so I didn’t take a picture. And I quilted wavy lines in the dark floral borders in the top and bottom final border, also not visible. 

On Friday I tackled the yellow flying geese that surround the center panel. After searching for some simple ideas, I settled on this pattern. It was tricky to do because I didn’t want to wrestle with the quilt by continually changing directions and pulling its bulk around under the machine. So some of these motifs were stitched while I was looking at them upside down or sideways, although they all came out the same on the geese. My best motifs actually came out while I was stitching them upside down! I’ll thank you not to laugh at that.

After that, I tackled the next round, which consisted of the lollipop and friendship star motifs. By that time, simple was sounding real nice, so I just went with loops.

And here is how the front looks so far. I know, I know; it’s hard to see the quilting.

And here is the back. The thread matches the back wonderfully.

So, today I’ll continue. I think I’m just going to ignore the little checkerboard round since it’s only two inches. I’ll switch to pink thread and first go back to stitch in the solid pink border between the flying geese and the next round. Then I’ll tackle the pink hearts. 

My goal is to finish the quilting today so that I can trim it up and sew the bright pink binding together. Then I can bind, launder and photograph it on Sunday and get it packed and mailed on Monday. At least that’s the plan. 

I’m also participating in Bonnie Hunter’s Good Fortune Mystery Quilt-Along, and have the Clue 3 pieces to start on this week. And I’m trying to make a decision on what quilt to finish up next. Right now it’s a toss-up between turning all my selvage blocks into not one, but TWO finished quilts (and I’ve already pulled the sashing fabric) OR to start sewing together the Birds in the Lattice quilt blocks. There should be a third choice in there - a quilt that I need to start and finish before we go on vacation to Arizona in February. I’ll introduce that one in the next week or two....

Linking up to Angela’s Rainbow Scrap Challenge 

and Cynthia’s Oh Scrap!