Ruth's Star & the Corn Quilt

Two quilts to share with you today...

This is Ruth's wonderful violet star quilt; she first asked me to mark feathers on it so she could practice; when she saw me marking another quilt, she said, "You could almost quilt that as fast as you could mark it, couldn't you?"  So she sent it home for me to quilt.

 My goals was to have it done for last Sunday's quilt blessing, but I didn't manage it.  This morning I finished it and added the binding; it's ready to be passed on to another member to blind stitch the binding to the back.

I thought you might like to see some of the variety of feathers that adorn this quilt.  I do not pre-mark; I just stitch as I go.  I used Fil-Tec Glide thread on top and in the bobbin.

 I used a variety of colors both on the top and on the back.

 My sewing machines love Glide, and the stitches [tension] are so evenly balanced that I can use contrasting colors in the bobbins.

 I do try to add variety and some surprises to add interest for the recipients.

 Every corner is slightly different--just as in life!

The second quilt has been languishing for months--layered but not basted.  I love this old traditional pattern and think I need to make more.  The design yields wonderful quilting spaces.

 One of my friends just purchased a Handi Quilter Sweet 16 sit-down model.  Last week she invited me over, and I shared some quilty knowledge with her.  Then she invited me back to quilt while she pieced.

 Prior to the layered quilt languishing, the corn fabric, a gift from my friend Mary, languished for, quite literally, years--because I couldn't find any additional fabrics with that wonderful green. Finally I decided to pair it with the fabric for a sunflower dress that never got made years ago for my daughter.

 Somewhere along the line, the duck fabric came to visit (more of that in another post), so the three sing a happy song together.  Come to think of it, the duck fabric may also have been a gift from Mary.

 I thought I might put feathers in the half square triangles...

 But then I decided to go along with the corn theme.

When I carried the quilt into my friend's house, I hadn't really given any thought to how I would quilt it, so I'm happy, and just a little surprised, about how it's turning out.

I suspected I was consuming a lot of time wrestling quilts through my vintage treadle machines--which have twice the space of most "modern" machines.  I thought I'd be doing well if I could baste the layers every four inches or so and do some stabilizing stitching. Basted, and all this quilting done in just a couple of hours. I did discover that without having to wrestle the quilts, I need much, much less stabilizing stitching. I quilted until the bobbin ran out--a couple of hours, total--and came home.  Amazing how much faster even a sit-down 16-inch machine is. (I really think a couple of the other quilters in our prayer quilt ministry need one of these machines too.) It does have a stitch length control; I didn't use that.  I did make good use of the needle-up-needle-down control. I don't know that I'd actually enjoy wrestling full size quilts with this sit-down machine, but it's perfect for our prayer quilts.

She invited me back to quilt while she pieces some quilt-tops for the prayer quilt ministry. How fun!

I am also knitting, but forgot to take pictures.

I'll link to Judy Laquidera's Design Wall linky party--because adding the quilting is part of the design process too!

Happy quiltmaking.....