Sunday 21 February 2010

Filigree quilting

My winter swap quilt is ready to bind and label. I quilted in-the-ditch around the brown pinwheels and flange border, then got out the silver metallic thread. I made a special trip out to get the exact needles recommended for the thread, and it certainly paid-off.
The wavy silver tlines through the grey sections were done with the walking foot; I thought I'd minimise the amount of FMQing with the silver! And being a small quilt, turning it around umpteen times wasn't difficult. I think the quilting really lifts these parts. The grey print is actually dandelions, but has a bit of a snowball look to it.

Then I needed to increase the density of the quilting across the rest of the quilt to flatten it out, but I wanted to leave the white fairy frost as unquilted as possible, to keep the shimmery effect.
After quilting the pink and white squares heavily (again, with the walking-foot) I designed a filigree pattern for the white corners, then used elements of this in the outer border.
I did have a brief moment of horror when I realised that the steam from the iron wasn;'t removing the blue marking pen, because that's for the white pen, and the blue one comes out with water, and I worried I might have set the colour and ruined the quilt, but luckily water took it out easily!

8 comments:

free indeed said...

Very lovely!

grendelskin said...

It's wonderful! Very wintry indeed! And you were worried ... glad to see it was such a success!

Sue said...

its just beautiful the quilting is just right do you quilt on a long arm or just your sewing machine?

thehummingcat said...

Beautiful, looks great, love the metalic thread.

What Comes Next? said...

Beautiful! I love your little filigree quilting, and your meatallic thread work is perfect!

becanne said...

You are a machine! How did you get that done so quickly?

And it works perfectly - although my mind keeps replacing the browns with blues....

You swap partner is very, very lucky!!!!!

FlourishingPalms said...

Your quilting is lovely. You made a good choice with that filigree design that compliments the tone of the quilt, and repeats that white/pink print. And the quilting on the Fairy Frost is just the right touch. Nicely done, Emma!

Anonymous said...

Absolutely stunning - the shimmery fabrics and the silver quilting threads work beautifully - it looks like it has been touched with sparkling frost.
Shell x