That's my title with an Italian accent. But, truly, it. is. finished.
I deliver the Zigzag Stars this weekend. I am so glad to have it done...labeled and all.
Here is the whole thing and then a couple close-ups. It's about 80" square. I added one row. The original pattern was closer to a "normal" throw size. This is big enough for a double bed.
~Mama Joan
I am about halfway finished with quilting the "zigzags". This is going so much better than the micro stippling. But I think that will be worth it!
Not fantastic pictures, but here's something to look at.
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
I have been working away on machine quilting the ZigZag stars quilt from a couple posts back. I wish it was going better. I have a Sweet Sixteen HandiQuilter. There is just not enough room to make the quilting work. The stars on this quilt are HUGE, and I have to keep rolling the quilt back and forth to get to where I need to quilt.
Here are a few pictures of my work so far. The "half octopuses" below are hideous, but not enough to rip out and do over.
I am keeping at it, in spite of the hilarity!! I am micro stippling in the cream areas of all the big stars. That is so much harder than I thought. It seems like the machine does not slide on the rails of the frame as easily as it should. But this type of quilting does make the stars pop out.
Upward and onward...or at least finished some time!
~Mama Joan
I nearly mistakenly put this on my regular blog, www.shelbystitcher.blogspot.com...
That would have been a mistake. I have had this pieced for a while, but I am machine quilting it today. It is actually loaded on the Little Gracie already. I have had a hectic morning and need to calm down. Ahhh...
We are having a combined cousin camp/grandaddy's birthday weekend next weekend. I hope to get this quilted, bound, washed, and dried before we leave a week from tomorrow AM. I just put a one-piece 6-1/2" border on this and called it done. It measures 80" square.
Cousin camp is when my husband's father gets all his children and their "cousins" together (aka his grandchildren) for a retreat. We live in 3 different states, but have managed to do this yearly for the past 5 or so years.
There is one more secret project in the works, nearly finished, in fact. I want to get a good bit of the quilting done on this first. When I take a break, I'll take pics and do a post on the second secret project for next weekend.
