Back in August, I managed to finish making some giant scrappy blocks from my abundance of green scraps, and turned it into this oversized churndash top.
I even managed to do the quilting on the green part of the design before I left on vacation. I used some of the Crayola washable markers to draw out the free-hand design. I found that it really helped to keep the design flowing and pretty even. You can see even from the back that this quilting is still pretty loose and free-flowing.
The next 3 photos are today's quilting. I don't actually follow the lines very well, but having them drawn out to start with, improves the odds that the feathers will turn out like my brain imagines them. I did a slightly different technique in today's section, backtracking only the ends of the feathers rather than the whole thing. I think it really helps. And you can really see the difference in the lower right section above where I didn't do that and the fact I can't follow the same line exactly is clear
For the fill on the new sections, I was inspired by quilting from Ivory Spring Blog. Go here to see the gorgeous feather variations. My borrowed inspirations were the circular bits. I took some plates and cups to mark some circles on the large sections I was planning to fill so I would have intentional, but random circle motifs to work around. She uses more echoing and feather shape variations. More things for me to work on.
I need to finish this up so I can start one of the 6 quilts I designed based upon designs from Kyiv's St Sophia Cathedral. Here are some hints of upcoming quilts:
