Quilting

Now that all the excitement of last week has passed, this week has been much more laid-back. In fact,  I've spent most of this week at home.

On Tuesday I had to miss line dancing and Big Cypress Quilters because our golf cart had to go to the shop and we didn't have two vehicles to get us where we needed to go. Though we have routine golf cart service at our home (one of the reasons we bought our golf cart from the dealership we did) and had new battery and new headlights installed, there was a problem with the brakes that required cart servicing in Ocala. Turns out the brake problem was due to an incorrect installation, so that was a satisfying "no charge" fix.

So with extra at-home time on Tuesday I completed the Bernina Zen Chic QAL quilt top. On Wednesday I pin-basted it, and began free motion quilting that evening.

Piecing was a little slow because every intersection of 60-degree triangles needed to be carefully joined for accuracy. I followed Zen Chic's instructions to "skewer" the seams with a pin where the points met, and pin on either side of the points. This method worked well! I'm pleased with the precise joining of most of the seams.

 Only a few of them are a scosh off the mark.

 

The quilt top is about 83" wide by 82" long. I'm happy with the color I chose for the negative space. Though I would have preferred to use a Painter's Palette Solid, the color I needed was available only in Kaufman Kona. That color is Pond. A prompt for a name? "Triangles in the Pond"?

I pin-basted the quilt sandwich because batting is Quilter's Dream wool. Homemade basting spray wouldn't hold the layers together. Now I'm nearly out of safety pins because another large quilt (Spin Art) is pin-basted and ready for quilting.

It felt good to be quilting, as it's been quite a while since I've FMQed. Well yes, I quilted Austin's quilt (Owl Always Love You) but that was mostly walking foot quilted.

For the first time I'm using 40-weight Aurifl thread (green plastic spool) for top quilting. Previously I've most often used 50-weight. But since having this Janome serviced in late June, and telling the tech I was having a problem with thread breaks while FMQing, he said the thread was too thin. So I'm using 40, and liking it a lot! Now to get more colors. I'm happy with the price ($9.50) and speed of my last order from Pumpkinvine Corner in Atlanta. I'm sure I'll use that resource again.

For quilting designs I'm quilting whatever I want as I go - a combination of ruler work and free motion quilting.

Most of the custom quilting designs will be in the triangles, and wherever I decide to extend the triangles into the side negative spaces. For the rest of the outside negative space, I'll fill in with an all over design.

After line dancing Thursday morning, afternoon Ukulele Players Club, and quilting for a couple hours, Dan called me to this unique dinner. He made it up, mostly from leftovers, and calls it Chicken Italian Sausage Pepper Soup.

The scoop of rice in the center was the perfect compliment to the chunky broth of chicken, Italian sausage, yellow peppers, onions and seasonings - very flavorful. Soup was accompanied by this Lofthouse sauvignon blanc, a new-to-me white wine. I can always count on the nice quality of a New Zealand Marlborough.

Good food. Good quilting. Life is still good. Linda