I’m about half-done with the quilting. Half to go.
There are a few different things that quilting can do to a quilt:
- accentuate the piecing/applique/design
- blur the edges of the piecing/applique/design
- have nothing to do with any of it
- make something else happen altogether.
I mentioned somewhere that I’d been looking at this recently finished quilt’s quilting when thinking about what to do with this one. That quilt is too large to hang up in the room I’m sewing in at the moment, so it is hanging draped over a pole, not in front of me all the time.
What I notice when I look at it, with all its color gradations and checkerboarding designs is that the quilting in each square seems distinct. The quilting “design” is to quilt the heck out of it as Naomi likes to say , which for me is a long long series of spirals, spiral-ly things, tendrilly things, flowery petals, dandelion-leaf-like things, pretty much whatever comes next and fits in the space. There are times when I may say oh for pete’s sake stop with the spirals and do a sunburst sort of thing here, or how about a feather-thing here, or do something small here because you’re getting boxed in.
Up close it looks like a lot of spirals and all those other things. A bobbin’s (#6 at the moment) worth of line at a time, generally speaking.
From over here though, what I see is that each square has its own bit of design, random as it might be. The quilting isn’t blurring the lines or colors. I still see the color and design of the bigger quilt. The quilting in “Ten Years On” looks like part of the fabric somehow, in no small part because of the checkerboarding caused by the crossing color directions.
On this new quilt, I wondered if it would work the same way. I had some thought to wanting some purposeful diagonal stuff going on in a particular direction but I wasn’t married to that idea. I’d try to get some in when I could.
So I’m here to report that this effect of seeing pattern in each small square still holds true. The effect is not as strong as with the previous quilt, because the color/value difference between neighboring squares is not as large.
I’m good with quilting the heck out of things, and grateful to have an official name to give my process. I’m very pleased that both quilts stand on their own color and design wise and the quilting adds something else. I do want the colors and fabrics to do their thing, after all.
Do what you want with that info.
I’m a quilter. I make quilts. I don’t want anyone to call them something that says otherwise.
