November 15, 2010

Red Star Quilt Extension Update 1

The Red Christmas Star Quilt is such a heavy quilt!  I made it with Warm and White originally and it makes my muscles protest every time I move it around the machine, a big round of applause to people who make quilts this size on a regular basis!  So far I have attached all of my extension strips both to the front and to the back on all sides of the quilt.  I have also quilted two of the sides leaving me half done with the quilting.  Here's how it's looking (full of pins and only close-ups for now)
Before Quilting

After Quilting
 I was inspired by Sue's Swirls so much I tried to apply it to the red quilt.  I knew before I started the quilting would be demanding but I felt it would be worth the efforts.  Somewhere along the way I lost a bit of the wind look to my quilting as I thought more about my mother and her likes and dislikes.  She has never done well in cold climates so my swirls look a bit more like crashing waves.  To move over the quilt I found sometimes I had gaps in my quilting - tiny ones to small for a swirl but a little bit bigger than I'd like to leave empty so I started filling those with a bit of flame work, nothing complicated and perhaps nothing very noticeable but to me it created a fire and ice theme.

At this point the quilt has many pins.  I remove the pins as I quilt but there are always stray ones that stay in, so I try really hard to place a pin cushion like this away from cats, children, and grownups alike.  That has always worked out well in the past as I seem to be the only one that gets poked by the pins.  This is the biggest quilt that has ever been in my house and of course it's willfully working on being even bigger so it's harder to keep out of the way.  As you can see my efforts to keep family members (or meowbers in this case) from harm haven't worked out so well.
Perhaps Tiny thinks she knows best!

4 comments:

Vicki said...

And my applause to you for taking on this project in the first place knowing what you would be facing having to quilt a king size quilt in a regular sewing machine. I draw the line with lap size / twin size quilts. I also don't know how people do this on a regular basis.

At the Ricky Tim's quilt seminar they gave us a couple of hints/tricks for quilting with a regular sewing machine that I'm going to try with my current quilt. Even though it is a lap size, it weighs a lot more due to the extra batting from the trapunto. If it turns out to be easier to do the quilting I will post the info on my blog.

Gina said...

Well done on attempting the quilt. It is hard to quilt on the machine but the sense of achievement when it's done far out weighs the trials of the quilting.

Love and hugs Gina xxx

Heather Landry said...

That quilt is beautiful!! I really love the colors and the patterns you've chosen Liz!

QuiltSue said...

The quilting looks great. I would never even think of doing something like that on my machine much as I might wish I could!