Meandering Paisleys
DD#2 told me I was posting too much and she couldn’t keep up. LOL.
I am halfway through quilting the cream/white Candy Coated quilt. That much has taken roughly six hours. I am doing “meandering paisleys,” one of the patterns we learned in the Angela Walters class in Spokane.
I love paisleys. They look like little parameciums, and who doesn’t want little protozoa all over their quilt?
I went with this pattern because I figured it would involve many of the same movements as loops, and it does. It is a far denser quilting pattern, however. I am not a huge fan of really dense quilting—quilts that have so much thread in them that they can stand up the corner by themselves. This is about as much thread as I am willing to put into a quilt.
Learning a new quilting pattern by practicing on quilt sandwiches is helpful, but I also understand why most quilting teachers will tell you to move on from quilt sandwiches to an actual quilt, even if you don’t think your quilting is good enough. I could tell the moment that this went from something I had to think about to something I was doing unconsciously—rather like learning to ride a bicycle. (I was about two hours into the process, for what that’s worth.)
The Q20 doesn’t seem to have an issue with the seams in this quilt, and with the sides up on the table, I have plenty of space to move the fabric around. I’m using a Schmetz 90/14 quilting needle—the size recommended by Signature for the 40wt thread—and I’ve changed it twice so far. I think I am overly sensitive to the “thunking” noise that a dull needle makes. The bobbin thread is the Mettler that came with the machine.
These Candy Coated scrap quilts are good for practicing on as the busy-ness of the design hides a multitude of quilting sins. I know where the hiccups are, but as a friend of mine said to me once, the difference between a professional and an amateur is that the professional doesn’t point out the mistakes. I like this paisley design and will use it again.
I have another Candy Coated basted and ready to quilt, but Noon and Night is up next. I’ve been driving myself nuts trying to settle on a quilting design and thread color for that one. I like the 40wt thread for most of my quilts because I like to see the quilting. I don’t like to see the quilting so much that I am willing to use a contrasting thread color—I would never quilt red paisleys on a white quilt—but I like to see the texture. For Noon and Night, though, I want the stitching to blend in as much as possible to allow the design to be the focal point. I’ll experiment on some of the orphan blocks, but I’m leaning toward a 50wt smoke gray for the top thread. And perhaps it’s a cop out, but I think straight diagonal lines are going to be a better choice than a free motion pattern.
So many design considerations.
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Yesterday’s Living Free in Tennessee podcast was a fascinating interview with one of the community members named Rae Bardon. Rae is a fiber artist and a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. She and her husband also have an online business called Viking and Weaver where they sell their handmade Viking drinking horns and other items. I knew nothing about drinking horns before I listened to the podcast and now I do! I learn so much from that group.
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The husband is pouring concrete supports for a bridge project today, but it’s not in a location I can get to easily so no pictures. He’s getting a lot of use out of the computerized surveying equipment he bought this summer. I don’t think surveying is really part of his job—neither is architecture, for that matter—but he runs into a lot of projects where the information he has been given by the surveyor and/or the architect doesn’t match the reality on the ground. He checks everything now as a matter of course, and sometimes he has to make adjustments.
Tera’s barn slab is on the schedule for some time next week—if the weather cooperates—and I will get pictures of that pour.