Destiny's Deb Quilt, Part 2

Putting pictures in a blog is not the easiest thing I have ever tried to master, so breaking this up in sections was better than tearing out big clumps of multi-colored hair and throwing them on the floor in frustration!

With that said -- on to the free motion quilting. Destiny chose all of the stencils and threads, but left the actual quilting to "moi" -- I used the Bernina Stitch Regulator on the Bernina 830 machine for all of the free motion and I just LOVE the way that combo purrs along and gives me those even stitches that I want to see. I'm also very much appreciating that 12" wide opening so that fluffing & stuffing is even easier than it was on my "old" Bernina!

The outside leafy block is SCL-254-11 and the 6" center design is HH43-6. As a guide to "stencil speak", the letters are references to a collection (HH, for instance, is a line designed by Harriet Hargrave), the next number is the design number and the last number is the size. I usually choose a stencil sized 11" for a 11-1/2" to 12" block; this leaves sufficient room around the design so that I'm not bumping into neighboring blocks. The thread for the top of the machine was Sulky 40 wt. rayon, color #1204. The name of this color is Pastel Jade and it showed up nicely on the white background.

Once the blocks were quilted, I was ready to mark and quilt the borders. For the narrow inner border, we chose one of my old standbys, a narrow feather design. This is also from The Stencil Company, design HOI-141-1.5. A slightly darker Sulky rayon, #1094 (Med. Turquoise) was our thread choice.

Here's where things got a little tricky and where it helps to keep on top of all the gadgets and tools out there. Since the snowball blocks were white, I was able to use a water-soluble blue marker. I use either Mark-B-Gone or Nifty Notions; both brands can be seen easily and I have had no problems washing them out. However, I do run them through a full laundry cycle in order to do this. Don't forget that you have needlepunched any marker clear through all of the layers of your quilt in the quilting process, so you do need to make sure the chemical is washed out thoroughly.

Needless to say, blue marker was not going to show up on either of the border fabrics. Both brands also make a pink version of the water-soluble marker, but I chose instead to use my pounce pad, which is pictured above. When you purchase one of these, you are looking for The Ultimate Pounce Pad made by Hancy Mfg. Co. It will say on the package that the powder pounces on and irons off. I've only used the white and I absolutely know that it works very well.

To use this, you first have to fill the pad with the chalk that comes with it, pound it up and down a couple of times on a piece of fabric to get the chalk powder flowing and then position your stencil where you want it -- if spacing is involved, I have already figured that out at this point and made small placement markings (I call them registration marks) on the quilt so that I will place the stencil properly. Then you just swipe the filled pad over the stencil, lift the stencil and move it to the next repeat. It marks very clearly, as you can see below.

This border was quilted using The Stencil Company's SCO-101-05. In a later post, I'll have to show you how I store all of these so I can find the right one easily! The thread we chose was the darker turquoise Sulky thread that was used in the narrow feather border.

So all we had left to do was bind the quilt, get it to the auction on time and SMILE when the quilt was purchased for $500!!!

Here's a picture of Destiny with the finished quilt. The quilt was made using my Batts in the
Attic pattern, Summer Stars. If you would like information on purchasing this pattern, you can use this link: www.battsintheattic.com/PrimaryPages/quilts_a.html