9th & Boardwalk: Quilting Edition
So almost two months ago, I started quilting the "9th & Boardwalk" quilt. I mentioned it, but didn't show anything. I quilted some diagonal lines crosshatching across the purple squares, which I thought added some great movement that wasn't there before (sorry I don't have all-over pictures of this!). And then I was stuck. I had no idea what to do with the huge expanses between the cross-hatching!! I tried added vertical straight lines and didn't like them, knew I didn't want to look of a FMQing pattern, and so I just waited around for weeks and weeks for inspiration to strike. At last it did - I forgot I had a continuous line quilting book my mom had given me!
So I set to work marking the pattern in the way that would work best with this quilt (out of the listed suggestions in the book): tracing paper. Yup.
First you trace the design onto your tracing paper, then safety pin 5 or so layers of paper together and "quilt" along the lines with no thread in the needle. This will transfer the design to multiple pages much more quickly than tracing all of them.
Then you pin the design to your quilt and follow the lines made by the punched holes. Easy peasy, right?
Well...almost. I did find it hard to see the pattern very well when moving backward (which is sometimes necessary). Transferring the patterns by "quilting" sure saved time, but honestly, the traced design would have been easier to see. Also, the delicate tracing paper ripped in some places before I was able to stitch over the lines, and it was a bit of a pain to hold the paper together. My FMQing foot kept slipping under the tracing paper in those spots.
Another downside - picking all the tracing paper off when you are done. Blech. Tweezers and some help from the obliging (though complaining) husband came in handy here.
Of course, in the end, there were NO marks on the quilt to fret about (will it wash out? won't it? I sure hope it will....) AND I thought it looked positively fabulous. The pattern really pops on the back, which is mostly dark purple. I may use that as the front of the quilt at times...
Ps, I love gold thread :)
It does take me a decent amount of time to complete each medallion, so this one will be in the works for quite awhile. Especially with my current 9th month of pregnancy exhaustion, which will soon morph into brand new baby exhaustion. But it's worth it :).
Tutorial for the purple blocks in this quilt found here.
Linking up to Fabric Tuesday and WIP Wednesday:
