My intention is to quilt each star with different free motion fillers and patterns, and then the background (regardless of whether if it is pink or blue) will be pebbled. This is a big project (despite it being a smaller quilt) intended to stretch my skills and to produce something show-worthy. I'm going big or going home with this one.
I now have three blocks done and am excited to show you each one! Some of the quilting is hard to see, but hopefully you can pick out most of the designs!
Center block:
Innermost star: meander
Middle star: loops
Outermost star: wiggly echoing of the medium star
Center bottom block:
Inner star: overlapping lines similar to Matrix (first time using this pattern)
Outer star: swirls and curls
Center top block:
Inner star: 8 leaves/petals (which are really hard to see in this picture!)
Outer star: Echo Shell (first time using this pattern)
I can quilt the star area of an entire block and start the pebbling outside of the star with one bobbin. I need a second bobbin for each block to finish (or nearly finish) the pebbling in the background and "connect" to the previous blocks or next blocks I plan to quilt. That's a lot of thread!
One difficulty is dealing with the "pointedness" of each star -- sometimes it makes using certain fillers difficult. When I did the Matrix-like quilting, I had to do a lot of back tracking to be able to quilt the star points. Doing the leaves in the third block was easier because the leaf points extended into the star points, which is unfortunately hard to see. I really liked the Echo Shell pattern. It did take a little forethought to get it into the points correctly, but I think it turned out awesome!
Now that I have the three center most blocks completed, I am going to do the middle two stars (or group of stars) on each side.
Linking up for WIP Wednesday, Let's Bee Social, and Free Motion Mavericks!
Very nice how the dark star points will show off the different quilting in each one.
ReplyDeleteThe quilting looks great. Just thinking of all the pebbling makes my hands hurt though. Hope the rest goes smoothly.
ReplyDeleteYour stars look cool and good on you for trying some different fmq designs. Pebbling certainly uses a lot of thread but looks so cool.
ReplyDeleteYour stars look cool and good on you for trying some different fmq designs. Pebbling certainly uses a lot of thread but looks so cool.
ReplyDeleteLooks great Alison! Free motion quilting is always my favorite part, once I have a game plan. Yours is going to be perfect.
ReplyDeleteHello Alison,
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely quilt! Quilting all the stars will be a real challenge, getting the different designs into the tight corners. You are doing a great job!
Thank you for linking up with Free Motion Mavericks.
Love, Muv