Big Top Quilting Progress

“Quilting” is a term that encompasses many different activities. Strictly speaking, though, “quilting” is the process of joining layers of fabric together with needle and thread, either by hand or machine. Hand quilting is very different from machine quilting. Machine quilting really is its own art form. I’ve noted before that I prefer the design and piecing part of making quilts over the actual quilting—either by hand or machine. However, I don’t want a closet full of unquilted tops, so I am forcing myself to get better at machine quilting. As Angela Walters says, “Every master was once a disaster.” I am nowhere near master, but I think I have progressed at least a bit beyond disaster.

I’ve been struggling with how to quilt the Big Top quilt. I can see the appeal of having a longarm machine on a frame, hooked up to a computer, making an edge-to-edge design on a quilt. That setup takes a lot of agonizing out of the equation. As my Q20 isn’t on a frame (or hooked up to a computer), my version of that system is to quilt meandering loops. I am good at them and they don’t take much time. They aren’t appropriate for every situation, though. Sometimes a quilt design can be enhanced by custom quilting, or quilting different sections of the top in different ways.

Amanda Murphy likes to approach a custom design by quilting “the bones” of the design first, then going back and filling in specific areas. I first looked at the photo of the vintage quilt that inspired my version:

I see the strong vertical and horizontal lines that come from the shape of the block. I changed my piecing, though, to avoid those oddly-shaped wedges, so I don’t have that same kind of underlying grid.

It does look as though the top has hand quilted lines just inside and outside each unit, so that’s where I started:

I used rulers to quilt inside each of the background sections. I am also going to quilt inside each quadrant of the circles. (This is starting to resemble the quilting, actually, on Noon and Night, where I did much the same kind of outlining.) I’m going to do that much and then reassess. I am not a fan of dense quilting, but there has to be enough quilting to keep the batting from bunching up. I might have to add something in these background areas.

These aren’t show quilts. At this point, I am machine quilting my tops with two objectives in mind: 1) to get better at it; and 2) to finish the tops so I can publish the patterns. That’s it. And in the process, I am getting to know the Q20 better and what it likes.

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I went ahead and started cutting the purple and green fabrics to make a quilt from that block that everyone liked. Even if it’s not my style, it’s a pretty block and I think it will make a pretty quilt. It’s good to get out of one’s comfort zone. I also want to make a quilt with the block I designed, but I am still considering fabric choices for that one.

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We are celebrating DD#2’s promotion to a new position with Nordstrom. Instead of being an assistant manager in a store, she will be working from home as a merchandise analyst. I have always been impressed with Nordstrom’s policy of promoting from within. They also like to cross-train their employees in several different areas. DD#2 did an internship with Nordstrom in college and worked at the store in Spokane before moving to Seattle to work at a store there.

I’m sure someone will take offense at this, as taking offense seems to be the default setting of a lot of people these days, but I am incredibly proud of the fact that all of our kids (I include DSIL, too) show up and work hard. All three of them knuckled down last year and did what they had to in order to keep moving forward. DD#1 transitioned to teletherapy (not an easy thing to do in a hands-on profession like hers), her husband finished dental school in the midst of a lockdown, and DD#2 not only made her base salary but additional income in commissions. Honestly, it’s not hard. You can either sit around and whine about how hard and unfair things are, or you can get out there and make things happen. The husband is going to have lots of opportunities for some young guys to show up and make good money this summer. We’ll see who actually wants to do it.