In praise of Ditch Quilting

It was difficult to do the ditch quilting. I did not want to ditch between the rows because parts of the one block formed a unit with the neighbors. So with the walking foot I did some ditch quilting, creating islands.

The feathered quilting I did around the embroidery blocks forced some puffiness into the embroidered area. This I now have to counter very carefully without creating pleats. So I was so sorry that I did not do some more ditch quilting!

Fullnes in the embroidery area

The spirals I quilted in this background pattern help a lot to handle fullness.  You encircle some fullness and then spread it evenly in the bubble with the spiraling stitches. One must be very careful not to stitch a pleat. If it look unavoidable, I stopped, lift the pressure foot and with my finger try to “divide” the fullness.

When I quilt a pattern without drawing lines, I need to give my brain “directions”. When quilting this lazy daisy, my goal is to move from the one square to the next. So starting in the corner, I tell myself “Quilt a halfsircle with the outer edge reaching the middel.

Half circle

 Then reaching the adjacent corner I say: “Do an s curve moving through the middle to the opposite corner.

S curve

 From this corner it is another half circle and I have reached the next block. Once this is repeated in all four squares I just move back forming an s curve in every square to reach the starting point.

Second half circle

Like so

 Today I quilted lazy daisy’s and 4 backgrounds. Tomorrow it is the rest of the backgrounds. The biggest problem is the quilting in the embroidery blocks- that I leave for last.

I haven’t decided on the border quilting yet. This I usually try to do as soon as the ditch quilting in the border seam is done. If the border is quilted I can trim the additional batting. The quilt is also flatter and it is easier to get to the middle. The Bernina 830 with it’s bigger free arm made it easy to reach the middle, so I never felt that  it was necessary.

I worked a bit more on my appliqué quilt and will have some progress to show by tomorrow.

I am ashamed to say, but I took the process pledge so I have to. (I know I know, I have so many Quilts in Progress I should not start new ones!)  I made my first  blocks in Barbara Brackman’s Civil War quilt. Why would a South African want to do this? I love patchwork blocks and just found it irresistible to work along. I am 17 weeks behind but will catch it up in no time! Over the years I have collected (by buying scrap bundles) many suitable fabrics. So this is a good time to use some of this, otherwise it will go wasted. (This sounds like a very good reason to me. )

So why do you think I got such a lot of quilting done today? I first had to quilt for 4 hours before I could work on this other projects. This backward motivation worked well! I made a 20 cm (8 inch) and 10 cm (4 inch) block.

8 Inch

4 Inch Comfort Quilt Block- Week 17