Free-Motion Quilting Day

    I have done a lot of free-motion quilting today and had a lot of fun trying out new patterns and practicing of my technique.  This quilt has 9 butterflies and each one is quilted with a different design.  I used a piece of overhead plastic and a water soluable pen to try out and practice a design before free-motion stitching it on the quilt.

Here are a couple more.

The lower edge of the quilt has green to represent plants so I free-motion quilted a couple of different leaves across the area.

I still have a good bit to quilt since I am quilting more densely than usual.  It is time to stop for the evening.

Orphan No More

     A few months ago I found 19  - 5” pinwheel blocks that were leftover from a quilt I made at least 5 years ago.  Today I finished a quilt top that includes them.  I did not want to throw them away so I feel good that they have been used.

     I also finished quilting and binding the scrappy squares quilt.  I have pieced several quilt top in 2013 but this is the first quilt that I have finished so far this year. 

 I divided the outer border into even squares that I used as a guide to free-motion quilt loops small and large.  I used a variegated blue thread that does not show up much on the top.  I used the walking foot to quilt a wobbly line in the small inner border.

Here you can see part of the back border where the quilting shows up better. 

I have a bin of scrap binding pieces.  I chose pieces of basic colors and used them to bind the quilt.  I love it.

WIP - Works In Progress

    Today has been a great day for sewing.  Yesterday I sandwiched the bright scrappy squares.  I had just gotten my Bernina back from being serviced so I thought it should be in great shape to quilt.  I used the walking foot at first to quilt wavy diagonal lines which stabilized the center.  Then I changed to the free-motion foot and quilted between those lines with lines sort of like wood grain.
Here is the front.

The quilting shows up better on the back.

I needed a break from quilting so I finished sewing the rows together for the orphan pinwheel top and I got one border added of the floral so it makes the pinwheel blocks float along the edge.

When I sewed the blocks and rows together, I had to press the seams open because of so much thickness at the points where the geese units met the square in a square units.  I don't know another way to avoid all the thickness.

I would love for someone to share a pressing suggestion for how to aware the thick seams at points like in the yellow circle.