Slow Stitching

Squiggly seaweed on the points, pebbles in the center square

Usually slow stitching refers to hand stitching.  In my case, it just means I'm taking forever to quilt this by machine.

I finished piecing the top two weeks ago.  It took several days to decide on how to quilt it.  I had picked flowers and leaves before I was told NO FLOWERS.

Okay.

Do waves, I was told.  So I picked an overall wave pattern.  Nope.  Don't do waves across the whole quilt, just parts of it.  So I changed gears again.  I was intrigued by the water theme, so I stuck with that.  I spent so much time browsing the web for quilting designs.  I liked leaves and seaweed-like plants.  Finally, I sat down to quilt.

First attempt at leaves

Just feeding it into the machine made me realize I the quilt basted, rather than pinned it.  I lost an afternoon laying it out and tacking it down.  Halfway through my first sash I became overwhelmed with the size of the area I was working on.  I decided to tackle the smaller blues instead - not so scary and a little easier to move under the machine.  I hadn't wanted the stitching to really stand out since the blues had enough pattern, but the thread I picked really disappears.  It looks awesome on the oatmeal-colored backing, but hard to photograph.  I hate doing pebbles, but I am liking the way it looks.  Yay!

Can you tell I'm such a freemotion beginner?  My other projects had been smaller - what a difference trying to get it under the sewing machine.

I've returned to the sashing.  Not quite as difficult, now that I've gotten used to dealing with the size of this quilt.  Still not happy with it.  I have a few ideas, and I've picked a different thread.  I may have to pull out the few bits I've done. 

I'm close.  Once I get into the groove of the green, I bet it will move right along.  I'm hoping to have that done in a week or so, and another week to do the cream squares.  Then it's on to the binding.  I might have this summer quilt done by the first day of Fall.  What do you think?  (Snowball's chance in summer?)