In my previous post I showed you Allison’s beautiful appliqué quilt, and now I will share how I marked and stabilised this quilt and the
order in which I did the quilting on it.
After loading and outlining the appliqué so the quilt was
stabilised, I could roll forward to this point. I marked with chalk the external outline for
the edges of the feathers. I made sure
that the width of the feathers remained consistent, and it was roughly half way
between the inside and outside appliqué keeping a balanced feel.
Then I marked the stems of the feathers.
I quilted the stems, and some of the feathers before rolling
forward and stabilising the quilt again by outlining the appliqué,
and doing some of the McTavishing. I had
also by this time, done some of the McTavishing above the feathers.
I found the centre point of the appliqué and marked the
outer edges of the centre oval of feathers then I marked the stems of the
feathers.
I quilted the stems of the feathers and some of the feathers
in the centre, continued the outer oval of feathers down both sides, and did
some of the McTavishing around the appliqué to stabilise the quilt to this
point.
The quilt was stabilised enough to allow me to roll forward
to continue the feathers on the outer oval.
I referred to a print out of an earlier photo to make sure I was keeping
the dimensions of the oval the same as the top of the quilt.
I rolled back and completed the inner oval.
I now marked the bottom part of
the outer oval of feathers.
I quilted the stems and the
feathers of the bottom of the outer oval.
Note there is a small amount of McTavishing around the appliqué above
the feathers - this was part of the stabilisation so I could roll the quilt
forward to this point.
From this point I continued to
stabilise the remainder of the quilt by outlining the appliqué and McTavishing
in places to hold the quilt layers together.
I completed the quilting by
rolling back and forward filling in the McTavishing in all the unquilted spaces
and finishing off with the pebbles around the feathers.
As you can see, with a quilt that
is as heavily quilted as this one, I don’t start at the top and do all the
quilting at each pass. If I did this, I
would distort the quilt. Rather I do
enough to stabilise the quilt at each roll forward and then fill in all the
gaps later.
Ankle update - the boot is scheduled
to come off in two weeks – horray!
Thank you so much for the mini-lesson, Desley. It'll be a few years still before I can get a longarm, but I soak up everything you guys share. Also, I imagine with heavy quilting that I'd get distortion problems with table-top quilting, too, even with basting, if I just started all gung-ho at one end and worked across. Good to see how you do bits and pieces to get the stability online first.
ReplyDeletethat was really interesting.. thank you for posting such detail. Its this sort of detail that is often not included in books. If you ever have a traditional sampler to quilt i would love to see the process you used for custom quilting it
ReplyDeleteThanks for this great tutorial. What do you use to mark your quilts. Looks like chalk? I always love your feathers. So beautiful.
ReplyDeleteYes, I use chalk.
DeleteThis is wonderful. Very helpful.
ReplyDeleteits a really pretty quilt, Desley
ReplyDeleteSuper tutorial. Thanks so much for sharing. Glad to hear your ankle is improving. How wonderful it will feel to be free of any casting. It will feel weird at first, but you'll soon be off dancing!
ReplyDeleteThank you for this wonderful tutorial! I have never seen this approach to stabilizing with quilting as you work your way across the entire quilt. I too was wondering what the method of marking is. Chalk? Absolutely stunning!!!
ReplyDeleteVery interesting to see how long armers work, so different to a domestic machine.
ReplyDeleteHave you used chalk to mark?
Thanks for making the effort to share the process with us. It is very helpful, even if you don't use a longarm, especially the marking method.
ReplyDeleteReally Interesting Desley, always wondered how you tackled such a project.Great Tutorial.
ReplyDeleteGreat info...thanks so much for the details.
ReplyDeleteglad to hear the boot is getting off soon! thanks for the tutorial- I'm always concerned with how much stabilizing is enough I usually pin baste here and there if I need to roll forward, but mainly on small quilts. I will try to remember your technique for the future. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for telling us how you quilted this beautiful quilt. I don't use a longarm machine but still enjoyed seeing the process.
ReplyDeleteGlad you are about done with the boot but know you will still have to keep working with the ankle to get it back in shape. Continued good wishes for a full recovery.
thank you...it's always great to see what others do to design and mark quilts. This quilt is beautiful. Thank you for sharing your tutorial. ~karen
ReplyDeleteWow! Wow! Thank you soooo much!! What kind of chalk do you use? It looks like white shows on white. Is it plain ol' blackboard chalk? Do you sharpen it? I'm having a real problem finding a marking tool that works for me.
ReplyDeleteMaggie in Arizona