Linen & Lace

Linen & Lace is a wholecloth table runner I made for the machine quilting issue of Australian Patchwork & Quilting (vol 22 no 10). It was out about a month ago, but it has taken me ages to edit all the photos - I found this one really hard to get the colours accurate, especially the linen.

It's made in the same way as Crystallised - entirely free-hand, free motion quilted, though I did use guidelines to keep the patterns even. And this one has a lot more quilting in it - which probably goes a long way to explaining why I'd had enough of quilting lace by the time it was done!

Apologies in advance, this is rather photo-heavy to show the details!

This time I chose colours which were more my style - purple and green with a splash of dark teal,  instead of the ubiquitous red and aqua. My starting thread palette is below, but I didn't use the darkest purple, and left out a few of the very similar greens and purples, too.

The white Glide thread was the base, and I quilted a lot in that before starting on the other threads.

Each lace doily is different, and I tried leaving some with only a single colour added and one (above)in all-white (and silver) - although the green (below) one does have one hard-to-spot line of purple!

As with the previous version, the heavier thread (12wt Razzle Dazzle by Superior) was done in bobbinwork, which basically means it was couched by machine from the back, with the heavy thread hand-wound onto the bobbin. I do this after I have a good structure of other quilting - since I can't see the guidelines from the back, I use the existing quilting as my guidelines instead.

By quilting patterns overlapping others, the lace becomes quite dense.

I've rotated a few of the photos, because I can leave the portrait-oriented ones bigger to show better detail.

This quilt would be an excellent way to practice free-motion quilting control, but you could also achieve a similar effect by playing with the fancy stitches on our sewing machines that most of never use!

I didn't decide until the last minute whether I'd actually chop of the corners. I really like the finished look it gives to table runners, but it also meant cutting off quilted sections of a couple of the larger edge doilies - which would have totalled several hours worth of stitching all up! I know I made the right decision, but now I can't bring myself to let go of the trimmed corners!

I love the heart effect on the outside of the one below. It's actually created by first quilting the outer scallops, then joining the pairs with a row of big Vs. I also love its spiral centre.

I actually think the one below got too dense - a lesson in knowing when to stop!

Deliberately leaving the centre as a small, unfilled circle avoids the thread build-up that many have, and adds visual variety. This one looks quite floral, especially with the lines radiating out from the centre circle.

And fro a totally different effect, flip it over and use the back! I used a gorgeous hand-dyed-effect wideback left over from a single bed quilt, and most of the bobbin thread was white BottomLine:

Now the question - could I bring myself to allow it to be used on a table?!

I'm not ready to list this one for sale just yet, but let me know if you're interested - I could be convinced. Of have a go at your own - don't forget to show me photos if you do!