Scroll about half way down for the "Step by Step" on this quilt.
Here is Shena's Meadow Quilt. This is the third Meadow Quilt (a Lizzy House design) that I've quilted. Each one has been different in fabric selection and quilting. Shena wanted lots of curly, girly quilting, no geometrics and some Graffiti Quilting in the border. And whereas I had quilted "echo blocks" more or less where they would show up if the quilt had been extended on both the other quilts, Shena said she only wanted a few and more or less random. So here are are the pix of what I came up with. As of today, Shena does not have her quilt, but I did send her pix and she responded that she was happy with the way it turned out. Will try to get it to her soon - she is in Lethbridge.
Here's the "step by step" for the blocks:
For this quilt I went with two thread colours - a light neutral (can't remember if grey or beige shade) in the central block area and then a closely matching purple for the border. I actually did start quilting at the bottom and work up. This is because I start at the top, baste the very top edge, then work my way down row by row and pin baste. I do this with my vertical lock on and check that the quilt is straight against that guide. Once that process is done (takes a bit of time, but of all the loading methods I've tried, I'm happiest with the results I get with this method), I baste the bottom edge and cut of any excess batting to prevent it from bulking up on the roll bar as I also do a lot of up and down rolling.
Above: now it's all ready to go. I "stitched the ditch" around all the "flower petals". The result is that all the center blocks are ditched and locked down. Ready to quilt. The above pix shows an arc ruler - this is the biggest one I have and this is the one that I used to do the ditching. It's a Jamie Wallen "extra large" Mystical Arc, I believe, which I calculated to be the arc of an 18" circle (I think!).
Above: time for marking. I used my 3" * 18" ruler and an air erase pen - but as you'll see, it was on it's last legs so the lines are very faint in my pix, but good enough to see for sewing. That pen is probably in pen heaven now. I'll get to the circle in a minute.
Above: place the ruler from petal point to petal point across the centre of the flower.
Below: draw a line from point to point.
Above and below: do the same thing in the other direction (doesn't matter which direction first - just pick one and start).
Above and below: now line up the diagonals using the petal intersections. This is where you will start noticing whether the piecing is accurate or not. If it's not accurate , the center intersection in the yellow will be interesting! But don't sweat it - these are just guidelines, will disappear, and the stitching will be unaffected - people will just wonder how you got all your curly things to be so "perfect"!
Above: drop your needle down on one of the petal bottom centre points (again, doesn't matter - I started with the top one and worked my way to the right - but they all have to get done so just start!).
Below: - hard to see, but for the first curl in the petal, I have quilted a sort of upward curling mustache that extends to the little line dividing the petals. Quilt one side, then the other and stop at the centre point, needle down. If you need more detail on any of this, drop me an email (contact box on right sidebar).
Above: end the "mustache" on the centre point.
Below: stitch the curls one on one side, one on the other, work your way up that center line that you marked in. At the top do a little finial (take a close up look at a finished block). Then travel back down that centre "stem" to the edge of the yellow.
Tip: New to feathers? If these curls were tight together, they would be feathers so it's an easy way to do feathers.
Above and below: here's where that 4" circle comes in. It will help do two things smoothly: 1) ditch around the yellow and 2) travel to the next starting point. Of course, these two things are covered in the same action, which is to set the circle into position (it's not an exact fit around the entire yellow, but it fits pretty close in a quarter of the yellow - you may have a perfect size to fit). Stitch a quarter of the way around to the next petal center mark and drop your needle there.
Above and below: repeat as described above - all the way around the yellow. When the 4th petal is finished, complete petals by ditching back to your starting point. But you're not finished the flower yet! Without lifting your needle and cutting the thread, fill the yellow. I used pebbles, but any smallish fill that you like would work just as well.
Quilt all the remaining "flowers" in the same manner.
Now for the "fill" part of the blocks....
Above and below: Same deal. Mark the diagonals on each section. The lines are very faint, but they are there.
Above and below: Drop your needle into the centre of the fill block. Quilt out a curly design into each eighth section. Again - take a close up look to see what I did.
Below: work your way around all the sections - start and end at the centre point.
Repeat until all the fill is done.
With the exception of the "echo" blocks that I put in the border, the border was done entirely freehand with no marking, so you're on your own for that!
