Freemotion Quilting on the Buckeye

Today I did some more quilting on the Buckeye Beauty Quilt. I really wanted to set off the flowers by echoing around them, but with the top of the quilt light and the back of it dark I was very torn with what color thread to use for this part of the quilting. After staring at the quilt for at least a week I took it over to my thread collection and it dawned on me. Tan! Why hadn't I thought about it before? As there is no tan on the quilt it seems like a bit of a leap, but the tan is a neutral so on the front it blends and accents to the light color and on the back it blends to the dark. It was just the answer I was looking for.

This quilt is my first attempts at freemotion quilting and clearly thereby my this is my first six practice runs at offset freemotion quilting. I pulled the quilting line from the tip of the flower and brought it around that way it spiraled out getting bigger with each go round.

I love this little trapezoidal border, but I was concerned about how to quilt it, stitch in the ditch would have yielded all together to many stars and stops and more thread build up than I was willing to have. As I was quilting the echoes it came to me a bit of a whirl on each color would do the trick and then I stitched in the ditch on both sides. That just leaves the outer most border to be quilted (and to pick up the black thread to finish off the bursts on the Windmills).

We are all indeed still sick with me having a mild fever all day. At this point I long to be better. Hopefully you are well and will enjoy a happy holiday.  Best Wishes from our home to yours!

As always if you would like to see an image closer up, feel free to click on it.