Ran to Bolts in the Bathtub, my local quilt store, to buy a cone of Isacord, color #2220, a 40 wt. polyester embroidery thread that almost matched my bobbin thread. Isacord is made by Mettler and has the same color numbers as Poly Sheen, so since I like to support my local quilt store and Mettler, it's a two-fer....
I removed the lid of the machine and attached the two cone thread stand so I could sew with the large spool and keep my bobbin thread handy, too.
I decided to go with the smaller stencil and do echo stitching around the scallops. So I started stitching the butterflies and flowers with my preferred free motion foot -- the open toe foot. I like this one for maximum visibility; I see better through air than through metal or plastic.
After the stenciled stitching was finished, I put on the echo foot and started stitching rows outside the scallops, using the side of the foot as a guide to keep the scallops at an even distance.
When the foot was "cradled" between the stitching lines that made up the point of the scallop, it was my cue to pivot into the next scallop. This is a really useful foot for this. There are concentric circles on the foot, spaced at 1/4", 3/8" and 1/2"; using the outside of the foot like I am for this border is just a touch larger than 1/2", allowing me to be able to do just two of them to get the effect I want for this border.
The echo foot is also handy if I am stitching over a block with a lot of seam allowances. It glides better than the metal free motion feet do.
And here's how the stitched border looks! Now all I have to do is the binding -- I have more of the pink and white striped fabric for that.
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Location:Palmdale CA
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