The first quilt is done!

I had originally thought that I would first finish Mom’s red, white, and blue quilt that I showed in my last post. But I just couldn’t get my head around how to quilt it. So I pulled out this one. It’s about 70″ x 85″ and old enough that the colors are practically back in style again.

First, I looked through my library of stitching patterns and found these cute little daisies for the sashings. All of these were stitched using the computer. No way am I that good at free-hand quilting.

Next, I outlined the flowers, including outlining each petal. I wanted them to stand out. Then I quilted a vein in the leaves. Initially, I had done it in white since that was what I was using on the background, but after I’d done five squares, I decided I didn’t like it at all. Phooey if the back of the quilt looked weird with only the vein in green. (It looks OK actually.)

Outlining the applique was challenging to do–sometimes the machine just didn’t want to follow the edge of it, and sometimes it wanted to stitch up onto it. That wasn’t my fault after all. Right? (Yeah, I know it is, but I got better at it as I went along.)

After I outlined the first coneflower, I really agonized on how to finish the background. I decided to add a feather to each of the leaves, which I really like, and I decided I wanted the feathers to stand out. That meant that I’d need to quilt the background either heavily, or using a contrasting design such as straight lines. 

I didn’t want to quilt this heavily, so initially I decided straight lines. I tried it, and hated it! So I thought about it for a few more days and decided to try wiggly lines. And that made me happy! They’re so much easier, and they really looked good. They gave it a much more natural flavor.

When I finished the fourth block on the first row, I realized I’d forgotten to add the feathers. Rats! But then I realized I could make it a feature! Having random squares without the feathers would be interesting. So I decided which blocks on the quilt would be featherless, and went with it.

So, quilt #1 of 7 is done! I’m already behind, but the point is that I’m getting them done. Maybe it’ll go faster now that I’ve started.

Here’s the next one–another of her early quilt tops.