Happy National Machine Quilting Day!

Besides playing with pixels, I spend a lot of my leisure time playing with threads. Quilting has been a satisfying pastime of mine for quite a while. I particularly enjoy the creativity of stitching the layers of fabric together. I do this on all sizes of quilts using a regular, domestic sewing machine. In honour of National Machine Quilting Day, I thought I’d share some shots of my latest project. Others may be added in the future and archived on a new menu page: Threads FiberArt {I changed my mind}

Prairie Lily is featured on the cover of “Little by Little, Quilts in Miniature” by Mary Hickey (That Patchwork Place 1988) and has always charmed me. I decided to make it for our local quilt guild mini quilt auction which will take place at this year’s quilt show. I drew the block pattern (flower part) in EQ (Electric Quilt software) so I could print out paper foundation pieces. This allows for a ‘sew by number’ type of construction. The machine quilting was all done free hand (no templates or marking).

This was the first time I changed the threads on the back to match those on the front. That way I didn’t have to deal with the top or bottom thread showing up on the wrong side which was what was happening as seen below. I removed the heart border stitches, put pink thread in the bobbin and decided to do a feather border instead!