Sew Karen-ly Created...

If you have arrived here via a link (such as to a tutorial) click on "Sew Karen-ly Created" to return to the latest blog post. I invite you to my website to see a gallery of quilts and patterns available for purchase.
Comments are always appreciated, simply click the word "comments" at the end of each post to leave your message. Thanks for stopping by!

Monday 12 April 2010

Filling in The Space Between

The hardest part for me in quilt making is deciding how to quilt what I've just spent many (blissful!) hours piecing. Based on the number of "how do I quilt this thing?" queries from others, I am not alone in this. The quilting adds another dimension on top of your work and often is what makes or breaks a quilt. In my mind, the quilting should enhance and expand upon what your top is about. One time years' back I read an interview with an octogenarian quilter who had been plying her needle almost 70 years. Her advice was simple: "Quilt what you want them to see." I thought it was a very sound approach. Last evening I puzzled what to quilt between the points of the latest New York Beauty. The blocks themselves have lots of movement, and I wanted the stitching to echo that in a continuous circle around the spikes. I auditioned several possibilities in my doodling, but kept coming back to the same motif. Since I do not draw well, thinking about stitching alternating spirals was a bit scary; it helped immensely when I realized that this is really a large S. Good penmanship I can handle :)
After my S unfurled, my stitching wandered off in a wavy line to connect to the next triangular section.
The piece is ready now for bias binding which perhaps will get added this evening...life permitting.
I have already started to piece a variation of this quilt using the same blocks; it has an entirely different outside shape and colourway, pairing a Benartex bali with the Fossil Ferns. It will call for alternate stitching to help convey what it is about. When both are completed, I will post the pictures here.
How do you decide what to quilt?


4 comments:

  1. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing your insights.

    SewCalGal
    www.sewcalgal.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow! Love how that looks!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Karen - I am so impressed with your "quilting" between the points. Do you really do it frehand? Incredible work. Lucy

    ReplyDelete
  4. That's great inspiration. I plan on quilting my beauty this week. I agree with you on marking. I'd rather just come up with a plan then just free-hand it.

    ReplyDelete