Pandemic Plaits

There was bright sun on Sunday and I found a good spot to photograph Pandemic Plaits.  I took lots and lots (and lots) of photos.  You've been warned.

I am very pleased with the quilting.  This quilt has so much texture in the sunlight.

The backing came from a local quilt show.  It kept calling my name when I walked away fro the table, so I had to go back and buy it.  It's all suns and moons.  I used a little of it here and there, but I was glad to have the bulk of it still left - the blues and golds go so well with this quilt. 

There wasn't quite enough to cover the whole back, but just enough rust, gold and cream for a horizontal stripe. 

Wow, plenty of quilting practice on this quilt!  I'm still struggling with stitch length when quilting large areas.  But the newer quilting gloves and the quilting slider helped a lot.  I worked on the dreaded pebbles - I seem to do better if I do circles within circles, then moving on.

I tried a variety of big flowers.  I was happiest with the medium and smaller ones; something I could keep track of as I quilted the whole flower.  The big ones were tricky:  I had to trust I'd match back up at the starting point, since I couldn't see the whole design as I worked on it.  A few flowers are missing bits of details (only I will see) that I didn't catch until I was done quilting!

I had googled tons and tons of graffiti and improv quilting and tried as many things as I thought was feasible on my Singer.  If I could doodle with ink and paper, I tried it with thread.  I can't tell you how many hours I spent deconstructing other free motion projects to attempt them myself:  ribbon candy, leaves, new flowers, loopy swirls and fans and loads of feathers.  Some felt good to sew and looked okay, some were awkward to do but looked great!  My favorites were anything I enjoyed stitching and looked great.  

 

There was a swirl design I had bookmarked ages ago used for a large border.  I got the chance to try it out (center of the cream braid above).  Once I got the hang of it, I really liked how it flowed and how it looks.  That's a keeper. 

I started the quilt with ruler work:  a medallion with circles around the edge and hatch marks in the middle.  I abandoned that idea fairly quickly - it was too tough to move around that much quilt and work with the ruler.  Since this bit was nearly in the middle of the quilt, I ended up ripping out part of it and changed the biggest circle into a flower.  That's the drawback of starting in the middle of a quilt!  But it blends right in with the modifications.  This also has one of those take-it-on-trust flowers. 

I tried lots of different kinds of leaves, plus some straight-line filler (without a ruler).  I also liked making partial circles, then adding designs to the edges to expand the circle.  My favorites in this photo is what I call the flaming-feather swirl (upper left) and the flowers (there's nearly four of them hiding in there).

I tried out some fan shapes, which were easy.  This photo has some leaves that like, more of the jazzed-up partial circles and hidden in the blue, three of my favorites:

A feathered swirl, a leafy vine, and a flower.  I don't know where I found this leafy vine, but I really like the way it feels and the way it looks.  A single quote-shape on a curve, then two rounds leaves on the other side, then a curved triangle above the quote.  Then switch sides and repeat.  It would be a fantastic border design.  I will absolutely do that one again!

Good thing I'm keeping this quilt.  Next time when I do free motion research, I can examine it instead of digging through the internet.  I hope I can remember how I stitched most of this.

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