Quilting

I have to confess here and now that I do not enjoy the quilting phase of any project.  I know that there are some out there to whom this is an integral part of their piece and spend time on dense, intricate quilting but I am not one of them.

Maybe it is because of the highly printed fabrics that I generally use - they don't really lend themselves to showing off intricate quilting.  And I have to say that I am much more interested in the fabric combinations of my work rather than the quilted stitch.


I use a 40 wt. thread when quilting, a polyester with a bit of a sheen to it.  Usually I will do specific quilted shapes for different areas, changing colors frequently.  Seldom do I quilt an overall pattern across the entire piece.

I also do not mark my quilts, preferring to randomly "draw" as I go.  Even when doing a line or grid pattern, I usually follow the edge of my embroidery foot when doing free-motion quilting or the edge of a seam and then build upon those lines.

As you can see by these photos of the back of my quilt, I also don't worry about having my bobbin thread match the backing fabric.  I much prefer to have my bobbin thread match the color of the thread that I'm using on the quilt top so that I don't have a contrasting color come up from the bottom if the tension of my free-motion quilting isn't perfect.  I find that, no matter how hard I may try, there is always that bit of tension on a sharp turn or change of direction that will bring the bottom thread up slightly.  Or maybe that is just indicative of my quilting skills!