Flamboyant feathers

For the first time, I'm linking up with Leah today. I'm going to bombard you with more quilting-in-progress (last one before the final reveal, I promise). It's turning into quite an epic quilting adventure, but I'm extremely pleased with the results. I've done a bit more triple stitching. Love how it looks!

I got a wee bit bored after a while, so I decided to start the borders. It's such a pretty quilt I decided to try some free-form feathers around the border. I have done feathers before (on this quilt) but these are way more fun, and I'm much happier with how they're coming out. The first one was awful, and got ripped out - but I learnt from my mistakes (make sure the curves in the foundation line are really gentle!) and the others have come out really well.

 I've decided to continue the triple stitch behind the feathers (as you can see from the tiny section I've done). I'm hoping to get the quilting finished in the next week or so - but we'll see how it goes. I've been quilting for a few hours each night and it's still got a long way to go!

Hope everyone has an awesome weekend.

xx Jess

My new secret (quilting) weapon

Since I started free motion quilting, I've read about various tools and gadgets that make the job easier, but up until recently I haven't used anything to aid my quilting. Recently though we were at our local hardware store in the gardening section, and I noticed some fairly cheap gardening gloves that were really flexible and had great grip, so I got a pair intending to use them when quilting. They sat unused for a few months, but then I thought I'd try them out for quilting my Retro Flowers quilt.

I am so glad I did - the make it so much easier to grip the quilt and move it smoothly when quilting. Problem is, my little girl loves them too, and keeps running off with them (so they're currently missing!) They've been such a help with quilting Retro Flowers - I'm stitching in the ditch around each petal, and then echoing about 1/4" away, which has required a lot of control (and time and patience!!). So far so good (apart from the first one, which will be ripped and redone - it's extremely wonky). I'm going to leave the petals un-quilted so they really pop.

For the areas in between the flowers, I've decided to use a quilting idea I've been admiring for a long time, which is a trademark of the fabulously talented Lisa (seriously check out her blog - she quilted the Best in Show at Quiltcon). It's called triple stitch (as the name suggests, three straight lines of stitching really close together) - time consuming, but I just totally adore the texture it gives. It kind of looks and feels like really chunky corduroy. Since it's fairly small areas, I'm doing it by eye (following the central seam for the first stitch lines) - I'd love to do it over a larger area, but would definitely be marking first.

I've quilted around about 3/4 of the flowers, and only done the one triple stitch area so far, but I'm really loving how it looks :o)

Hope everyone is having a great week!

xx Jess