Mondays with Mara (lets talk about quilting)

Hi everyone – HAPPY SEPTEMBER!!

What in a world is “Mondays with Mara” you may ask…. Well, I want to be here with you on a VERY regular basis and decided I need some regular blog features – hence, Mondays with Mara, aka – ME! 🙂 I gave it this very general title to come here EVERY Monday and share with you what I love and know about quilting – how does that sound? I very much hope you will let me know!! (in comments, send me an email… whatever works!)

Let’s start this Monday chat by talking about one of my favorite parts of the process – QUILTING!!

Is it your favorite too? One of the favorites? Like it at least a little bit? Not so much…? (again – let me know in comments – lets chat!!)

In my previous post I talked about my most recent quilt finish – Phoenix quilt. I was honored to be one of the pattern testers for my super-talented friend, Sharon Holland – you can get your own Phoenix quilt pattern on her website! It is such a beautiful design, easy to make and so versatile!! You can read in the previous post about my inspirations for color choices for this quilt and the process of piecing, so now lets talk about quilting it!

As it was for fabric colors, when I started thinking about quilting pattern for this top, one thing was on my mind – the name, Phoenix! I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to actually try and doodle the Phoenix bird? Then the next question came: are you crazy, woman?? You don’t have skills to do that… (do you do that to yourself too?) Well, then I decided – hey, lets try to doodle and see what I can do… even if it is very simplified and kind of stylized Phoenix bird!

I made a quick, “no color” version of the quilt in my EQ8 and printed it to have for doodling. Above is what I came up with – using the lines of the HSTs within a block as my guides. In my head – this does look like a Phoenix bird! Haha – I know it might be just in my head, but hey, that’s enough for me to try and play! I decided I will do this motif in the center block and four corner blocks and then see what to do next.

Then came thread color choices!! This quilt has some beautiful colors of AGF Pure Solids and of course, my trusty Aurifil thread has equally as beautiful colors to match!! But after some play and thinking, and since all my corner blocks and middle one were in red and orange color family, this is what I did:

After I finished those 5 blocks, I decided to quilt just gentle wavy lines in a “V” pattern, in rest of the blocks, kinda like this (see the white lines I drew on the photo?)

Picked dark navy, 50 wt Aurifil for that and also filled in those navy squares between the block designs, that simply begged for some swirls…

In the photo above you can also see what I mean by “gentle, wavy lines”. I have to say that this is my way of getting out of lot of quilt mangling and turning and marking – if I was to do straight lines, I would need to do all that and I find this to be an easy substitute, done with free-motion quilting (vs. straight line, with walking foot), and just all together more forgiving. Now that would not work for EVERY situation, but it did work well here. Specially because I like juxtaposing organic, non-straight line quilting with some geometric, straight lines of the pieced blocks.

How about you? What is your “GO-TO’ style of quilting?

So here is what came out of my sewing machine friends!

For the back, I used this beautiful burnt orange color of 50 wt Aurifil, since that lovely navy print has that color in it.

I really like how this back looks like (I didn’t have enough of the navy print for the whole back, so decided to do some intentional design by adding this beautiful green – both fabric are AGF, from Sharon Holland’s Bountiful collection.)

Here are some more photos of the finished quilt and quilting:

OK, so let’s talk about quilting process:

1. What do you like about it?
2. What do you dread about it?
3. Matching color thread or contrasting thread?
4. What would you like to get better at, when it comes to quilting the quilt?

For me: 1– I love almost everything about quilting the quilt – love the texture it gives, love the whole another chance to play and be creative, love to doodle with FMQ. 2- I dread somewhat the basting part, but hey – it has to be done! I also sometimes dread doing the straight lines, because that process is a bit boring to me and also – I am not as good at it (isn’t that always the case!). 3 – with color I go either way, depending on the effect I am looking for. And most importantly – I want to get better in pretty much EVERYTHING when it comes to quilting – better FMQ, much better straight line quilting and – most importantly – more patience for it! LOL

One can always, always get better in quilting, with – practice, practice, practice! Right?

I hope you enjoyed this first “episode” of Mondays with Mara – I am excited to share more and more with you every Monday! For next time, I am thinking – FALL… inspirations and colors of fall and how to pick them for your quilts!

Let me know what it is that you want to read about?

Wishing you all the best and lots of quilting time,

Love,

Marija