A Study in free-motion fillers and feathers

After Quasar 45, Crimson Inspired, and the Inspiration Teal and White strip quilt, I'm still infatuated  with Blank Quilting's Fabrications pre-cuts. The Skidoodle colorway is a joyful exuberance of color and... well... "doodles"!

Strip quilt made with Skidoodles collection of pre-cut Fabrications.

You can't help but smile at the swirly squiggles, speckled doodles, wobbly stripes and bright, bold crayon-box color palette. I added an accent of jet black solid to the mix and started stripping.

"A Feather Runs Through It" Skidoodle strip quilt.
48" x 48"

The outside border is created with the odd bits after cutting the blocks from a strip strata. Don't you love the little black triangles running the perimeter like a picket fence? 

The quilting on this piece was an exploration of free-motion fillers and feathers. With the bright pure hues of these fabrics, I was hoping the composition would hold up through all the thread color changes and a diversity of quilting patterns—and it did! Even the jumbo feather that swoops from the upper left to the lower right corners did not disrupt the rhythm.

A free-form feather sweeps through the quilt's center.

I experimented with a variety of free-motion filler patterns.

Pebbles and leafy feathers.

Circles and grids.

The backing fabric is Candy Dots 108" in lilac. With this single piece of wide backing, there is no seam interrupting the surface area and any mismatching of the fabric print is avoided (not to mention it's quicker and less work!).

View of free-motion quilting from the back of the quilt.

Back detail.

Back detail.

And here are the Stats:

6 bobbins of Bottom Line (Superior Threads), 17.75 hours of free-motion quilting with 40 wt. variegated cotton (YLI), 50 wt. cotton solid and variegated (Wonderfil) and 50 wt. cotton MasterPiece (Superior). Tuscany polyester batting (Hobbs) and a finished size of 48.5" x 48.5".

Check with YLS (your local [quilt] shop) for Fabrications pre-cut strip collections. Here is a link to the shop locator on the Blank web site. I hope you pick up a package or two and try some free-motion doodling on your own Skidoodles quilt.