Birding Wins!

It's mid-May in Northeast Ohio and that means non-stop birding is in full swing as thousands of birds migrate through the region in their annual spring trip to their breeding habitats.

So sewing and the social media has been largely ignored for the past several days and the only reason I'm here with you right now is that my body declared a "day-off" this morning.
The weather is cooperating, too -- it's raining.
 So I'd rather stay inside and the birds that are just pausing here on their trip farther north are more likely to still be here tomorrow!!
(Long-distance flying in the rain is not a good option.)

The one thing I have been working on for the past week is machine quilting another "big bed" quilt for one of the triplets!  It's the rose star sample I pieced using Marti Michell's template sets.

I've divided the top into two sections and added just the top and bottom borders to begin.
I layered the top half last weekend and have almost finished the quilting.
Working in sections is so much easier on my body as there is less weight and bulk to manage.
(Peculiar angle of picture due to limited large area to spread it all out.)

Next I'll layer up the lower half and quilt it. 
You'll notice that the batting and the backing extend way beyond the sides of the quilt.  That is so I can add the borders and cornerstones after the two halves are assembled.
(I'll organize some pictures of that to share as I do it later this month.)

I started with some simple straight lines in the ditch to outline the perimeter of each block and the setting triangles.  As I was doing those, I realized that additional straight lines from edge-to-edge of the quilt would outline the star points and dissect the setting triangles.

Once that was done, I experimented with the best/easiest ways to add more quilting.

Outlining the hexagon arms of the blocks, the center hexagons, and doing simple flowers in the center were the results of that.

The flowers are simple "pumpkin seeds" radiating from the center of the hexagon to the center of each side which aligned nicely with any seams as some of the hexagons are pieced.

The setting triangles were divided into four triangles by the in-the-ditch quilting so I went back and added more lines to break it up into sixteen smaller triangles making them lay flatter and recede visually.  If a section is puffy, it draws the eye -- sometimes that is just what is needed but not this time.

This morning as I began to quilt the borders, I had a "lightbulb" idea and want to share it as it might be useful to you.  The straight edge guide tool I use with my ruler foot only has straight lines (there are probably some that have more lines but I'm in a "make-do" mode here).

I wanted to stitch a diamond chain/cable in the second border using the sixty-degree angles of the patchwork and quilting in the center of the quilt.

I found this "pointer stickers" in my stash and used them to create two sixty-degree angles on my tool using the angles of the patchwork.  Having two lines going in opposite directions will make the next step easier!

 Now I can position the tool quickly -- the arrow edge is lined up with the edge of the border strip and I quilt along the upper edge of the ruler

 By having a line on both ends of the tools, it's easy to twist it to line up with the right, then the left, then the right and without any marking, I stitched a zigzag line down the length of the border strip.

In this picture, you can see the tool lined up on the left as I stitch a second zigzag line to create the diamonds.

 Everything lined up nicely -- there are a few little glitches but she'll be two when she gets the quilt so it's okay.  And I hope the quilt is worn with love by the time she might recognize that a few of the diamonds are not geometrically accurate.

I can't remember who taught me to "repeat design elements" throughout the quilting process but that's such an easy strategy!  Look at what is done and modify and build on it to do the rest.

Adding some fancy free-motion quilted flowers surrounded with "channel" quilting occurred to me over the weekend but when I got to that point this morning, I realized the flowers needed to be simpler.  

Time to pause and contemplate.

In the end, I enlarged the flower from the center of the blocks with the aid of the large hexagon template in Marti Michell's Set H and added some channel quilting following the white lines of the plaid border print.   This is the view from the back.

I'm pleased with the result but it will mean the borders are more densely quilted than the center of the quilt, so more quilting will need to be added to the center to keep the quilt flat.

Maybe some "big stitch" hand quilting with pearle cotton might be fun??? 

Thanks for letting me share this part of the adventure with you!  Writing this morning has been a great way to procrastinate cleaning house but I need to buckle down and do some of that to make it more pleasant to be here for another week?!?  I have to confess to feeling a bit anxious at heading back out into world this week -- slow and steady looks like the best strategy!

But I did get to visit the triplets yesterday afternoon -- they are soon to be a year old.

Would you look at those eyes -- three different sets but all endearing for sure!

(girl, boy, girl)

Stay focused and busy this week!