Choosing Your Quilting Design- Part 10

Part of choosing a quilting design involves deciding whether you want to do the prep work that the design requires. Are you that committed to it?

Take this quilt for example:

This top was made by someone in our church and donated to our sewing ministry. It was passed to me to quilt it and bind it so that we can get it into the hands of someone who can use it. This is a very well made quilt top. This quilter used the best materials and excellent workmanship. How shall I quilt it?

After much thought, I decided that I would continue on as the quilt maker had started. The design was just calling out to me to do something to accentuate the 3D look of the blocks— how could I make them stand out more by the quilting?

I took a photo and made it black and white so I could concentrate on the outlines of the blocks. I took my own advice and started doodling!

Some more doodling…..

I was at my weekly get-together of crafters in my neighborhood, so I took a vote. Here is what the consensus was:

Now to make it happen! What thread would I choose? I tried out several options— none of them were satisfactory. I realized that I was going to have to change thread with every color of block. And not only that— with every shade of every color!

18 different colors! This was gonna be tough! Okay— take a deep breath, it’s gonna be worth it! It’s a beautiful quilt top and it deserves beautiful quilting.

So I started the first vertical row. Stitching for 30 seconds, then taking several minutes to cut the thread front and back, remove the top thread, select the next thread, rethread the machine using my steel crochet hook to grab the thread and pull it thru the take-up lever, and my needle threader to get the new thread thru the eye of the needle. It was slooooooow going. But don’t the threads look great!

After what seemed like ages, I finished the first column and started the second. Oh no! The quilting was too dense— it had shrunk the backing fabric (also supplied to me by our sewing ministry and not my first choice)! I couldn’t pull it apart enough to keep the back smooth for the second column. Now what am I going to do? I wasn’t going to remove all that quilting, so I couldn’t change my quilting design. And with 8 more columns to go- how long would it take me to continue changing the thread every single block?

Well— this is where the prep question comes in. I had chosen a dense quilting pattern but I hadn’t done the prep work required of such a dense pattern in order to sew it on a domestic machine. The quilting that stuck out of the first column would have to be removed and the quilt top would have to be basted if I were going to continue. Was I that committed?

Yes! Let the basting begin. I will use a 100 wt light grey InvisaFil thread for the top and a prewound 80 wt gold DecoBob bobbin for the bottom and outline all the blocks.

I’ll be back once I have finished the quilt so you can see the whole thing! Happy quilting everyone!