Perfecting the Design...

Last week I finished a quilt top for a special birthday present.

It is gorgeous, but huge!

I have taken the Craftsy course by Angela Walters about Quilting Negative Spaces and she suggested breaking large quilts down into sections to quilt. To be honest I was a bit sceptical about that working - I mean if I quilt certain areas and then move on to another surely the layers will bunch up?

So I sat down with the gorgeous quilt and pondered a design... and I decided that the size of it does mean I have to work in sections, so what to do?

I had already decided to do a sun ray pattern in the octagons, a swirl in the middle and wavy lines radiating out, but the negative spaces had been a bit more of a mystery...

I tried a hoop design and turned over the quilt to discover a great big crease... plus the design just didn't look right in the space... seam ripper was found...

Then I tried a large single swirl... again it didn't look right and I got a crease....I hate that bloody seam ripper...

Finally I took a break and decided on a line design in one section and swirls in another... Now I am happy!

 

 

The Tula Pink design suits the sun ray design in lilac thread.

 

 

 

The corners of the octagon have lines rediating out.

 

 

Sun ray in progress on the next octagon.

I had drawn everything out, but when the ideas were actually transferred to the quilt, they looked wrong... so I am machine quilting the biggest quilt yet in sections, taking care to get it as perfect as I can...


I am late with my gift already, but I am hoping the work and effort I have put into it will make up for the lateness!