Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Happy Fat Tuesday!

This is indeed Fat Tuesday, and brings me back to memories of my teenage years, when I lived in the south and we celebrated Mardi Gras.  Now I am old, and live in the northeast, and get to lookout at all the snow!  It is vacation week for us.  I am doing a little quilting, but mostly playing catchup on doing nothing and maybe a little paperwork/writing.  This is a quilt I finished up on Sunday.  I was having issues with the timing on my machine, so against my desires, I finished it on the weekend so I could take my machine to Sanford Sewing yesterday for the annual check up.   Jean sent me 2 seasonal quilts...it's well past fall, but this should be all ready come this fall to display and use. Sorry...I do not know the designer.
 It is a 50x51", and I found a scrap of wool batting large enough for it in my studio.  If you have visited this blog, then you know that I am a reap advocate of using wool on applique quilts so as to get the poof under the appliques.  I just hate to see someone put all that work into appliqueing only to have them lay flat and lifeless.  A thin poly batt on top of thin cotton is also a good solution.  Poly and wool will not compress like cottons.
 All appliques and piecing are ditched, and then a simple custom quilting is stitched.  I like to keep the background quilting light and fun, throwing in some leaf motifs.  The main goal is to quilt it densely enough that the appliques pop, and that the designs are featured.  Dont you love the candy corns?! (not to eat though - bleh!!)
 I used several shades of SoFine 50wt thread.

 Nothing is overthought.  There is simple variety in the quilting, but not enough to hopefully be busy.
 My next quilt from Jean is a Christmas quilt, but it will wait until I am back from MQX!


6 comments:

Fiber Babble said...

Lovely quilting, as usual! You've inspired me to get back to the pile of quilt tops that need to be quilted. Having a newly-repaired and clean machine helps, too :-)

One question - did you stitch around all of the blocks before doing the detail work?

Leeanne said...

beautiful Margaret.

sdrussell said...

Oh my, I love what you have done with this quilt. Your Quilting just brings it to life. I sure do hope that you could find out who designed it, I would love to make it.
Diane Russell
Michigan

Joy said...

Your quilting compliments this quilt beautifully. I appreciate all the information you provide in your blog about battings, threads and technique. Could you perhaps talk more about stabilizing a quilt in a future post? Do you stabilize the whole quilt then go back and fill in or do you do it as you work through the quilt?

Unknown said...

Your work is very beautiful. So many different quilting designs within this quilt. I am just amazing.

KaHolly said...

Your quilt is stunning, and very inspirational. Stay warm and stay safe!