First quilt of 2010

Tradition snow-ball pattern, pink and lime.

Happy New Year to all! While the snow piled up outside, and while listening to an audiobook of Dorothy Sayers "The Five Red Herrings", I finished hand-quilting a quilt. Here it is, pinned like a captured butterfly, on my design wall, over the pieces of another quilt. The quilt hasn't been bound and trimmed yet, so is still a bit rough-hewn.

Since my hoop is round, and the quilt is rectilinear, I must sew on extender strips of muslin to quilt the border and corners. In a fit of organization-itis, I once recorded the lengths of my assortment of extender strips, using a Pigma Micron waterproof pen.

Stack of muslin strips, all different lengths, for all sizes of quilts.

Extender strips sewn on, corner ready to quilt.

Empty spool - satisfying sight - all 220 yards of thread used up!

Just about halfway through quilting the border I ran out of thread and made a run to Fabric Corner in Arlington for another spool of Gutermann quilting thread, in color 9837. I like to use coordinating thread, to highlight the texture of the stitches, rather than draw attention to the color of the stitches.

For the diagonal lines, no marking needed - just lay down masking tape.

Close-up of quilting.

The outline quilting and circles are static designs, but the running diagonal in the pink inner border moves along dynamically. I used pink thread for this border, Gutermann 2626, which goes well with Kaffe Fassett's shot cotton in Rosy.

The chevron pattern in the outer border frames the whole work, and I like the contrast of diagonal lines with the horizontal stripes of Martha Negley's Horsetail fabric. Although as a whole I am delighted with this quilt, on reflection I might have mitered the corners of this border, and will try that the next time I use a striped fabric in a border.