Saturday, July 9, 2016

Island Batiks Christmas in July - The Quilting

If you missed my last post about the applique for my Ornament Quilt you can find it here.  I'm doing this project for my Island Batik Ambassador's Christmas in July challenge.

Here is the finished quilt.  I was inspired by old fashioned painted ornaments.


I had so much fun quilting my Ornament Quilt.  I did the top so it looked like those folded metal tops ornaments often have.  I also had some fun adding circles and feathers underneath the gold top.


Here is the center of the ornament.  Most of details are quilted twice.  Yes, I backtracked over most of it to help it stand out.  I was going to use gold metallic thread, but metallic thread and I really don't get along.  Yes, I tried a sample and I just wasn't happy with what I was seeing so I ended up using a gold rayon Splendor thread from Wonderfil since it was the right color.


Here is the fan of feathers from the bottom of the quilt.


I decided to try out a new quilting filler design on this quilt and play around with it.  Essentially it is a large circle with a swirled S inside.  Sometimes the is proper and sometimes it is a reverse image depending on how I started the curl.  Come back Wednesday to see a tutorial on this design.


Here is the back of the quilt.  You can see that I match my top and bottom threads when I free motion quilt.  I like using solids on my backs so I cans ee the quilting there too.


The circles here were made by doing a wave in one direction and then coming back and finishing the wave with a second round creating the circles.  I've never done this many of them this way without marking.  I'm pretty happy with my first results.  I have learned that my curves have to look like the drawing below in order to make them turn out nicely.

Below are visuals for how I created my circles.  You'll notice that the top line goes up and down almost in a U shape.  It has to be this steep or the circles don't turn out nicely.  You can see what I mean by looking at the third row.  They aren't steep enough and end up looking more like eyeballs than circles.  The second row has two colors.  The red would be the original wave and the green is the second save done to complete the bubbles.


For the outer border which was very busy, I chose a simple figure eight pattern.  It is the first time I have ever quilted a figure eight and you can tell!  It was a learning experience for me.


Now for a few photos of the filler I created.  I'll started by using little circles (look at the left side of the photo above) to fill in any extra space.  I decided I didn't like this too much so I tried to instead give the effect of the large bubbles going off the fabric.  Look closely at the edge nearest the bubbles below and you can see what I mean.  There is a circle that is clearly not complete and would go off the fabric.


What a happy little quilt!  I really enjoyed doodling with quilting on the ornament and will most likely try it again sometime.


I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

5 comments:

  1. This is a beauty. Is it going to offered as a free pattern?

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  2. Love that background quilting. Looks great both close up and from a distance.

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  3. You did an insipiring job on the quilting! I especially like the swirly S inside the circles - that's a unique motif I haven't seen before :) The gold thread on the ornament was an excellent choice. So glad I saw you on the link-up! I'm now a follower

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  4. Beautiful quilt and quilting. I love these type of Christmas bulbs. I always use the same thread on the top and bobbin when I FMQ too.

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