I finished quilting the Grandpa's Star quilt last night. This Grandpa's star block comes from Bonnie Hunter's blocks that she did for Quiltmaker magazine, in her Addicted to Scraps column from March/April '12 issue. You can find all of her blocks from her column on her Quiltville blog.
I set my blocks on a diagonal and separated them by another sashing with cornerstones. To tame down the scraps a bit, I used the same sashing colour within each block and I chose another colour for the outer sashings and repeated the colour of the cornerstone.
I set my blocks on a diagonal and separated them by another sashing with cornerstones. To tame down the scraps a bit, I used the same sashing colour within each block and I chose another colour for the outer sashings and repeated the colour of the cornerstone.
The borders were quilted with back and forth lines all the way along each border. Here is a close up of the quilting on the borders. This is a great way to quilt out and distribute any fullness that may be present in the borders. This affect also looks really good on modern quilts too and is an easy pattern to execute freehand. The small border which is only 1" wide, I just did a wavy line.
This quilt was a practice piece for me. I was practicing my long arm quilting skills. The skills that I was practicing were placement of block and triangle pattern/designs, specifically with using the Quilt Path, and going from Quilt Path to manual for the sashings.
At first I left the borders incomplete as I initially didn't know how I wanted to quilt them. I have to still figure out how one quilts the top border and moves to the sides as you advance the quilt, with intricate designs. I had about three quarters of the quilt quilted when the idea for the borders came to me. So when I finished the centre of the quilt, I rolled my quilt back up and went back to quilt the borders (this was done without taking the quilt off the frame).
For those who debate whether they should or shouldn't float your tops on a longarm, well if I was not floating my top, I would not have been able to just reverse the quilt in the middle. I would not have been able to go back to finish quilting the top section, work my way back down the side borders and continue where I left off.
Just a note for those who want to try it. There are many YouTube videos out there on how to do this. When it comes to going backwards, there is no difference with how you roll your quilt up or down, but I just take extra care that my backing is still smooth underneath with every advance (up or down). I don't want any surprises when I am done, so I take the extra care, as I am doing it this way.
Above is a close up picture of a pattern I use directly from the Quilt Path files. It worked out really well for my side triangles. I learned that the trick to good placement, lies in the precision you take when you mark your position. It also helps if the blocks are square to begin with too! Lol.
I think I have the hang of it. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.
This next picture is of the backing. My quilt is bigger than the fabric width of 42", so this is what I did to make the backing bigger. The strips on the back are from left over pieces of borders that I used. I kind of like the fact that the backing is not just plain and it coordinates with the front.
To solve that problem, I sewed a piece of left over backing, from another quilt, to the top and bottom edges of my already made backing. This way, at the top, I had the extra inches that you loose in quilting area, the section that gets attached to the leader and goes under the take up bar. Likewise for the bottom, I had the assurance that when I got down to the bottom, I would not loose any quilting area of the backing when I got there.
It worked out well, even with the shrinkage I had enough backing with 2" to spare.
Enjoy the rest of the weekend everyone, I am off to finish off some renovations at my Mom's place, so no quilting for me today.
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