Using what I learned

The red and white table runner is quite angular in design and not really suited to my usual quilting designs, so I took some of what I learned at AMQF and did something different, although I rather mashed together things from different classes and a bit of my own technique.

I didn't buy much while I  was there, but after seeing Jamie Wallen use these nested diamonds to such effect I bought several shape sets (and am kicking myself for not buying the two circle sets while I was at it!). You can see a few of the smaller ones in the background of the photo below. I started by randomly marking scattered diamonds around the background of the quilt.

Then I quilted along the marked lines and filled in some of the spaces, always leaving the outermost diamond border unquilted, but otherwise with plenty of variety. Some of them have just a big space in the centre with one fill, others are a bunch of concentric diamonds with every other row filled. And almost every fill is different.

It's all done freehand for a few reasons. First, I don't have a ruler foot (once I can get one for my machine - it's apparently in the works form a few directions) I will, and I know what ruler I want, too). Second, I couldn't be bothered chopping and changing feet - or being forced to turn the quilt all the time! And third, by the time the fill is quilted all around every line, you'd never know whether they were quilted perfectly straight or not. (Shh - don't tell anyone!) Plus, I'm reasonably confident in my ability to follow short, straight lines - and it's just good practice anyway.