Quilting Again

Since QuiltCon was so inspirational, I've been re-ignited to sew and quilt. Having taken two workshops, and therefore begun two projects, these have sort of been weighing on me. Not because I felt obligated to complete them but because I need to complete them for a presentation I'm giving to Central Florida MQG on Monday, April 10. I'll share "What I Learned About Color At QuiltCon," overviewing some of what I learned from Tara Faughnan and Lee Monroe.

This is my 29" X 29" Dresden Color Wheel begun in Lee's workshop, "Understanding the Rainbow." 

While Di was visiting, I machine-pieced together the 20 fans, and hand-appliquéd two circles in the center.

Later, I hand-appliquéd the whole piece onto a Zen Chic background fabric.

This week I decided to have a quilting play with threads...

...and my new Bernina foot, the #72 quilting/ruler foot. In case you haven't seen this (Bernina released it a few months ago), here it is. That gold dial can be turned to raise or lower the amount of pressure being put on a quilt sandwich.

Here you can see how the foot is meant to be used... with 1/4"-thick rulers specifically designed for quilting. I have a complete set of Fine Line Rulers made by Accents in Design. Though for several years I've been doing ruler work on my Janome 1600P, having this foot now allows me to do ruler work on my Bernina Aurora QE440 too. I was pretty excited to give it a try.

And more than happy with how it performed! Though it's tough to compare the Bernina ruler work foot with the Janome ruler work foot, I think I like the Bernina foot a smidgen better. The only word I can use to say why is "sturdy." The Bernina foot feels slightly sturdier.

I put it through its paces with this quilt, doing only ruler work on the entire piece.

My photos don't show the 20 thread colors I used, a different one on each of the fans and radiating on the background fabric.

But I definitely like the effect of the contrasting fan curves and background lines. Lots of good texture!

The quilt binding is a single-fold, bias-cut black and white print.

I took this pretty photo here in The Villages, at Lake Sumter Landing.

Two evenings ago I took this picture to the east of us, over the top of our house. It's completely unedited. Have you ever seen a cloud like this?! Pink and flower-y shaped? Me neither! The neighbor said he expected a spaceship to appear out the top. 😀

Linda