The behemoth
Posted by cottonmillthreadworks on Sunday, January 23rd, 2011
When choosing the size of quilt to make, one should always consider the size of the room!
Once I moved the furniture, there was enough space to lay out my 96" (what was I thinking?) quilt for basting. In winter, when spray basting, turn off the gas fireplace and open a window so as not to set off the CO2 monitor. Or worse.
Although my Juki has a 7 1/2" throat this was still a big quilt to handle. However, I used Legacy Wool batting by Pellon and found that it didn't add much bulk, nor was it heavy to handle while quilting. Another plus to using wool is that the bobbin area is much less linty than when using a cotton or 80/20 batt.
Although my Juki has a 7 1/2" throat this was still a big quilt to handle. However, I used Legacy Wool batting by Pellon and found that it didn't add much bulk, nor was it heavy to handle while quilting. Another plus to using wool is that the bobbin area is much less linty than when using a cotton or 80/20 batt.
First step to tame and secure this beast was to stitch in the ditch using Masterpiece 50 wt. cotton in both top and bottom. Being a 2-ply thread it shows very little in SID work as long as you pay attention to what you're doing! Unfortunately the Juki doesn't have an open-toe walking foot like my Bernina so I need to keep focused.
I admire quilters who doodle and zen-tangle their way to gorgeous quilting designs, but I like the security of a mark to guide me. Once I got the hang of the continuous-curve arcs I just quickly drew them freehand with my chalk marker. Maybe one day I'll dispense with this step entirely but for now this works for me.
My friend Heather Stewart offered some advice on how to quilt this - "Keep it simple and just cross-hatch". But I felt that it needed something else too. So the plain borders have large cross hatching:
And the 4-patches have classic continuous-curve quilting:
This is a machine technique developed by Barbara Johannah back in the last century as an equivalent to hand quilting. Simple to do and effective. I was lucky enough to scoop her book (published in 1980) at the Guild Boutique of a quilt show:
I admire quilters who doodle and zen-tangle their way to gorgeous quilting designs, but I like the security of a mark to guide me. Once I got the hang of the continuous-curve arcs I just quickly drew them freehand with my chalk marker. Maybe one day I'll dispense with this step entirely but for now this works for me.
This quilt was a good opportunity to crack open one of those brand new King Tut colours that arrived recently - Heather's eye immediately went to #1016 Cinnamon and it is perfect!
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