Back to Work

After a week of "goofing around", I got back to working again and finished this zigzag quilt. 

My customer requested very light custom quilting. So I did stitch-in-the-ditch in the center, highlighting all of the zigzags. Several rows could be stitched horizontally back and forth without stopping, keeping down the cost for her. For the SID I used nylon thread, which also keeps down the cost because if my stitches wobble out of the ditch it is not even noticable. In the border I stitched a very simple diamond using a 90 degree ruler, and heavier 28 wt. Aurifil cotton thread #2000. I used the same bobbin throughout (another cost saving technique), Aurifil 40 wt. cotton #2315:

My February Family finishes included another Mini Mail Sack:

And I finally finished all of the hand quilting on this antique quilt top:

I found this quilt top on ebay several years ago, for about $50 I think. It is all hand-pieced and whoever put the blocks together did a very wonky job. Nothing matched up. I didn't care. I loved the fabric so much! And I loved the fact that somebody sat and stitched together all of these amusing basket blocks by hand. Probably while their family played around them, or slept. Who knows. But here was a quilt top - many years later - that nobody cared about.

I wish I could say that the sweet sentiment is why I bought it, but I could not resist the fabrics and that is why I bought it. I thought I would use it to practice my longarming. But when I discovered that it was all hand-pieced I switched gears and tried out a running pick stitch using black #8 Perle cotton. I used a thin cotton batting that I think is called Cream Rose? I chose it because it was the easiest to hand quilt. The backing is a pale turquoise cotton. I pulled the backing to the front for the binding. This was fun, and I might do that more often.

I am convinced that there is nothing more relaxing (in my life) than hand quilting a running pick stitch.

These fabrics make me smile...

Kittens

Houses

Childrens' Toys

Children's Toys

Baby Faces! And zoo animals.

I am supposed to be getting it ready to sell on my Etsy shop. Which isn't even up yet. I'm wondering if "getting it ready for my Etsy shop" is just an excuse to make stuff. Hmmm.

 I was also able to complete the center of my Sister-in-Law's Log Cabin quilt. The diagonal lines were initially going to be 2.5" apart because the curved lines quilted in the beige areas are about 2.5" apart: 

But when I chalked them out, I could see that they were too narrow and would cause the beige areas to puff out eventually.

So I did some quick math and spaced them out differently - 3 3/8" each:

 Even though it is larger than the curved quilting in the beige areas, it didn't quilt out looking too large. It actually quilted out looking very similar to the 2.5" curves:

Funny how curves and diagonals can play tricks on quilts.

: )