Ready….Set….Quilt

Yesterday I wrote about basting the “Star Explosion” quilt.

Today it is time to talk about the quilting process.

As usual, I had TOO many ideas at the start so I put a photo into ProCreate on my I-Pad and practiced drawing some of the designs. The first design that rose to the surface was using a “Dot-To-Dot” (as Angela Walters calls it) design for the stars……

With this design, you start at one point and stitch to a point inside the diamond and then back out to the other point. Then repeat on the other side!!

I wanted the quilting to be symmetrical so I measured and marked the inside points on each diamond……

….and then stitch to the points and back…..

Each one of the diamonds needed to be stitched separately and with the appropriate color….

The stars were easier to do because I could work from the center out and not have to break thread as often……

Once all of that was done, I had to figure out the background fabrics!!

I went back to Procreate and started playing with straight lines…..

I liked this idea…..

….so started with the outside lines.

On a whim, I decided to quilt them at 1/2-inch intervals…..

After tieing off about 50 of these, I started to wonder exactly WHAT I was thinking!!!

But, even with all of the extra work, I loved how it looked….

Come back tomorrow as we finish up the quilting.

As you wait, ask yourself…..”Would she REALLY be crazy enough to quilt 1/4-inch lines?”

Quilting the Curly Q..

Today I want to talk about quilting with the “Curly Q” ruler from Westalee.

I have had this ruler for a couple of years but had never spent time playing with it and YESTERDAY was THE day!!!

Here is my review of this ruler……

As I say in the video, I am not sure that this particular ruler is worth the work….

….although I do like this design a lot……


If you have used this ruler, PLEASE let me know your favorite designs!!!!

A favorite ruler and an easy border

I am quickly learning that my favorite quilting ruler is the 6-inch straight edge from Angela Walters. She named it “Slim”……

It works so well for many things but today I used it in quilting a border.

The first step was to quilt 1/2-inch outside of the main quilt…..

Placing the white 1/4-inch marking line on the border seam meant I got a perfect stitch line that was 1/2-inch from the seam.

Next, I wanted to add another stitching line on the outside of the quilt. This was made easy by placing the ruler on the first line and stitching along the other side of the ruler…..

Now I had a channel quilted in the border…..

….and the freedom to fill it however I wanted!!!

I chose to quilt a “Wishbone” design……

Adding the outside line gave me a guide to stop the Wishbone so that the binding didn’t cover it.

In a short time, the border was finished…..

I am sold on this technique and will DEFINITELY use it on future quilts!!!