First Pass Completed

I am hoping it's because it's new to me, but my back is killing me.  I wanted to get finished all the way across the quilt so I could unroll it and work on it more tomorrow and Saturday.  If I left it rolled, it would be very wrinkled.  I had to keep rolling the quilt back and forth to reach where I wanted to quilt.  That is not ideal for a number of reasons.  I am very pleased with the micro stippling, however.  You can see it in a close up in the top picture.  It makes the center 16-patch and the star points pop out.

The bottom picture is the quilt still pinned on the leader at the top and bottom of the quilt frame.  My original dream was to quilt a long feather in each zigzag.  I could do that on my domestic machine, but I'm wondering if the backache would be worth it.  It's too wide to do on the frame.  I will sleep on it.  Might end up just doing loops or large meandering.  Time will tell.

The strings in the picture of the whole quilt are indeed strings.  Let me explain...I could only quilt the top square and two next triangles down in one pass, then I rolled the quilt forward and did the two side squares on point of each block and the 4 triangles above and below it.  When I did that section, I could go from one block to the next because they touch.  When I did the top and bottom sections, I would have had to clip the thread and move over.  I just tacked the thread then moved over--will trim the threads off after it's finished. 

Top and bottom borders are quilted.  I am going to unpin and then repin the quilt after turning it 90 degrees to do what are now the side borders.

Off to clean the kitchen and fold some laundry.  Where is my fairy godmother?

~Mama Joan