Sunday, March 24, 2013

Straight Line Quilting

I am almost finished quilting the straight lines 1/2 inch apart on the black and white quilt. It hasn't gone badly but it takes along time. I used black thread on the black diamonds and red thread on the red diamonds and white thread on the background. I quilted the diamonds first outlining everything with ditch quilting and then parallel straight lines following the diamond shapes by turning at the angles. One of the background fabrics was darker and was like a solid diamond shape underlying the open diamonds and I quilted that with black and I only changed direction on that in the center where all the the lines across the width of the quilt changed directions. directions. Around the whole diamond focal area I echo quilted. I thought a long time about what I wanted to do and I think I "got it right". I still have to decide about the black star points but I am pretty sure I will use a black and white twist thread. 





































I am going to take out the black stitching On the white background on the left here and use white like I have on the right. This is the where background is showng through where the open black stars overlap the open diamond centers. The area here with the black stitching was the  first quilting that I did on this and I changed my mind about the color thread; it just calls too much attention to my not so straight lines. I knew I was going to take out at least 2 of the lines but I thought I would do them over again in black. After doing the rest of the quilting I have come to the conclusion that a thread that has less or no contrast looks better for the straight lines that are not always perfect.

 Straight parallel lines are a challenge for me but I like the look so I will probably use them again.

Maybe I will get better at it.
Maybe I won't.
Oh well!





1 comment:

Deb@asimplelifequilts said...

Your quilting looks fabulous - I think the results are well worth the time!