Hi, I’m Linda Pearl from One Quilting Circle, and I’m here to show you my quilt from Tammy Silvers and Kate’Colleran’s Adventures in Color quilt a long, that was done in earlier this year. Luminous is now available for sale as a Block of the Month program from either of their websites. Two designers, two fabric lines from Island Batik, one gorgeous quilt…there’s plenty to love here.

I’ve known both of these quilters (and their collaborations) for a while, and I was pleased to be asked to contribute to this project – it’s a beautiful quilt! One of the things I liked best about this opportunity was that they both said in the beginning that I didn’t have to make the whole quilt to participate.

My quilt used two of the elements in their quilt in a combination that fits my space, and I will be showing you how I quilt those elements. It’s actually a wallhanging sized piece, and my quilt is made by combining the large Selene block (or rather, due to space constraints, 3 of the 4 rounds of it), and several of the Aurora blocks as well.

I went with a red/white/blue color scheme for this – it’s striking, and if there was ever a time when you needed to make a patriotic quilt, 2020 is the year.  You can see the Aurifil clear monofilament thread in the bottom of the photograph.

Here’s the unquilted top on my design wall. This will be quilted using my Janome 8900 sewing machine and my Aurifil thread collection.  I’ve broken this into 3 sections.

In today’s post, I’ll be using my Aurifil monofilament thread and my walking foot to ditch stitch the center squares and triangles.  By using monofilament (clear), I won’t have to worry about changing thread colors, and I’ll be using this to stabilize the center of the quilt.

In the next blog post, I’ll be using my free motion quilting setup to quilt some feathers in the top right and bottom left of the quilt, hoping to balance out the amount of thread in the quilt so that it hangs nice and straight.  I’ll also be using a double needle to show you how to add a bead-board style of quilt to that nice, deep edge…perfect for this home grown Yankee.

Part 1 – the Monofilament…

My Janome 8900 comes with an attachment called an Accufeed foot, and it functions just as the walking foot attachment on any other machine would.  I will be using a double layer of batting when I quilt this, and the walking foot/Accufeed feature minimizes any shifting of your sandwich during the quilting. I should also say that I spray basted this really well between all the layers.

There are a few things to consider as you set up your machine. Whenever I begin to quilt a new project, I create a mini-sandwich which sits beside my work station. The mini sandwich is made of exactly the same fabrics (and batting, most importantly the batting) as what I’m working on. In this case, I made it a little bigger than usual because I will be using it when I get to the free motion quilting step for next week.

The monofilament from Aurifil is made of nylon, and the instructions off their website indicate you should use a thread tension of 2 or less on your machine, a longer stitch length and a 90/14 needle to start with.  Once I made those adjustments, I played with the set up to make sure that I liked the length, and ultimately went with a 4.0 length.  Note that I made a note on the sandwich so I won’t lose it!  You can use any 50 wt bobbin color, and I went with the neutral that I already had in the bobbin.  My backing is red, but I didn’t want to change the color. 

Now I was ready for my actual quilt sandwich.  I made sure that the backing was centered in the back of the batting layers, and then I flipped everything over so I could repeat the process with my freshly pressed flimsy centered on the top.  Make sure you leave at least 2 inches around the perimeter for trimming when you are finished.

I began to quilt this in the big square in the middle of the Selene block.  I did this because it was a square (meaning it would be secured in place), and also because I could then pivot and go around each of the elements in the quilt until it was completely covered.  Some of those elements are very small, and it would be too difficult to quilt decoratively in there.  I do have plans for the larger blue star points, but that’s for next week.

In the last picture, you’re going to be able to see one of my favorite tools – my bright green tweezers.  They are perfect for picking out stray threads I always find at this point in the process.

I hope to see you next time, when I finish the quilting.