Gee whiz… it’s been waaay too long since I sat down at the machine and dropped the feed dogs!
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| Free-motion quilting a charity quilt. |
Free-motion quilting charity quilts
My guild had its annual charity quilt-making workshop this weekend where a group spray-baste station was set up. I brought in two quilt tops to be basted.
Today, I sat down to do the free-motion quilting, and the first cuddle quilt was quilted in about 50 minutes. It was fun, effortless and totally intuitive. Free-motion quilting on a kid-size charity quilt is a good way to get back into the free-motion quilting saddle.
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| Free-motion quilting a charity quilt. |
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| Free-motion quilted cuddle quilt. |
The next quilt top under the needle was a kitty quilt that was made with improv blocks and leftovers from the quilt above. I chose a variegated 50 wt cotton thread from WonderFil Specialty Threads in shades of purple and lavender.
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| 50 wt. variegated cotton thread for quilting. |
The quilt back for this quilt was a red flannel. So I gathered several partially-filled bobbins with red thread from my bobbin donut.
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| Using up several partially-filled bobbins. |
With a new free-motion bobbin case for my Janome M7, the tension balanced easily and despite the contrast in color between the top lavender variegated and the red bobbin thread, there was no show through. The batting had a poly/cotton content—giving it a bit more loft and allowing the quilting stitches to sink into the fabric. This kitty quilt was quilted in about 30 minutes… a bit longer than usual because of the multiple bobbin changes.
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| Flannel back of the kitty quilt. |
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| Free-motion quilting on scrappy kitty quilt. Trimmed to about 25” x 29”. |
I have one more cuddle quilt top to quilt and bind for the guild. I hope it goes as smooth as these.
Logging in free-motion quilting time in my Create Daily Tracker
As seen in my Create Daily tracker for 2022, I don’t get much time for free-motion quilting. After all, I kinda need to be at home… in my studio… where my sewing machine is. Hopefully it won’t be too long before I quilt the second cuddle quilt.
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| Sadly, I’ve only logged in 4 days of free-motion quilting this year. Something needs to change! |
Machine pieced. Free-motion machine quilted. Next step: machine binding on these two charity quilts and quilting one more quilt top.
