Background quilting…..

We have been looking at the quilting and planning process for finishing my Monarch Challenge for the last two days. You can check out the posts here……

https://francesquilts.com/2023/06/01/monarch-quilting-part-1/

https://francesquilts.com/2023/06/02/quilting-planning/

I FINALLY figured out exactly how I wanted to quilt this background, so here we go……

(IF you receive notification of this blog via email, the video will NOT appear and you will need to click into the actual blog to get to the video. It’s one of those “technical” issues I can’t do anything about!!)

At this point, I am REALLY close to finishing the quilt and will be posting about it in the next week.

HOWEVER, I will be in Africa when the posts run and will probably not have access to the internet during that time. This means that I will not be able to cross-post to Facebook groups, so if you get to my blog thru those posts, you will not see them.

Can I encourage you to go ahead and subscribe to the blog so that you get an email when it posts? It is the best way to be sure that you don’t miss a single thing.

PLUS…..who knows when photos and videos from Africa might appear and you wouldn’t want to miss those.

If you have an interest in ruler quilting, check out this online course…..

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Quilting Planning

Yesterday, I showed you my quilting work on the major elements of the Monarch Challenge. Now it was time to quilt the background.

If I was a GOOD planner, I would already have made that decision but instead, I did the other things that I knew first.

Now it was time to think about possibilities. Sometimes I think that this is the hardest part about FMQ….figuring out WHAT to quilt!!

How do YOU accomplish this?

Here is a video of a few of my ideas. I hope that you enjoy…..

As you see, I found several ideas…..maybe too many!! Once I decided how I was going to quilt it, the final step was actually putting the stitches in.

Come back tomorrow to see the background finished!!

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Monarch Quilting – Part 1

When I left you, the Monarch quilt was at this stage…..

Now it was time to think about some of the quilting. Because there are a number of layers in this quilt, it is going to be a process of quilt some, embellish some, quilt some more, embellish some more!!

As I started the quilting process, I set up the camera so that it would capture my work.

Now, I am not going to make you watch all 5 hours, but here is a smattering of the initial quilting…..

Tomorrow I will show you the decision process that I used to decide HOW to quilt the background and the following day, I will share some of that quilting process.

Stick around for more!!

Do you struggle to decide what to quilt in your blocks? If so, check out my FREE series…..

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Using the Westalee Spin-E-Fex Ruler #16

We are getting ready to travel overseas and time has become VERY precious. Among other things, I have to finish my Monarch challenge so that I can enter it before I leave!!

Consequently, I haven’t had time to do ANY more grid quilting!!!

So, today is going to be a throwback day and I want to share the design created by the Westalee Spin-E-Fex Ruler #16…..

It is an easy ruler to use and I love the design…..

Have you ever tried these rulers?? If so, I would LOVE to hear what you thought!!!

If you have an interest in ruler quilting, check out this online course…..

Click HERE for more information

Milkweed Leaves

When I left you on Sunday, the “More Milkweed Please” piece was at this stage…..

…and obviously, it needed more in the lower right-hand corner.

I decided to add a stem and leaves so first “practiced” the layout using paper, thinking of something like this…..

The stem was easiest to make so I started with it, first cutting a bias strip from the darkest green.

I sprayed it liberally with Magic Sizing…..

….ironed it dry and folded it into a typical bias strip…..

OKAY….that works…..

Now it was time for the leaves and I played with several different shapes before I settled on an elongated oval…..

I wanted them to be two-sided so I cut it out of two different fabrics, sewed around the edges, and cut a slit in the back piece.

After snipping a few bits along the curves…..

I turned it to make the leaf…..

It needed some veins, so I drew them in and moved to the machine to stitch them….

THAT is when I realized my problem!!

It was almost impossible to stitch them because there was nothing to hold onto so I didn’t have a lot of control and the stitching didn’t look great…..

At this point, I stopped for the day….frustrated because I couldn’t make it work the way that I wanted!!

Later that night I thought of the perfect solution……

Come back on Saturday for more…..

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Thank you…….