Progress Report-1

Lindsey's quilt progress report.

I have started to actually put stitches in her quilt.  Actually I have done a fair amount for only starting this week.  I decided that I was going to trapunto the monogram and the 4 corner roses so I used poly batting scraps for those areas.  I put my water soluble thread in the needle and regular Bottom Line thread in the bobbin and stitched my monogram and the roses and then cut away all the extra batting away. 

I originally had a solid white extra wide backing that I was going to use but decided that a white on white backing fabric would be nicer so I stopped by my favorite quilt store,  Shaffer's Countryside Quilting, in Sharpsville, Pa.  to pick up the backing. 

I had bought  Warm and White cotton batting but also wanted to use wool on top of the cotton to give my quilting that faux trapunto look.  I heard that tip at the Quilting with Machines weekend in Aurora Ohio last October.  I am not sure which of the teachers mentioned that but I had it stored in my memory banks so I thought that I would try it out to see how it would work.  I don't know if it is possible to find white wool batting, I have not had any success yet in my search, but I would prefer white so that the top of my quilt would be whiter and crisper looking.  Anyway, I got it basted together on Saturday or Sunday and have started the quilting. 

The center.

The center where I have the monogram, I used a dark pink poly thread to outline my M,  and then I switched to a lighter pink for the background "Diane-shiko"  which is 1/2 inch apart crosshatching.  I put together a half dozen quilt sandwiches of my left over backing, 2 battings and topped with more of the backing fabric as I didn't have any extra fabric from the top.  I marked out several sample sections to warm up and perfect my Diane-shiko.  It took a while but by the end of the second practice piece I felt confident that although it might not be perfect I wouldn't ruin it either.   I took a deep breath and started filling in the background fill.  I haven't taken a photo yet of that. 

I am very pleased with how the monogram "M"  really pops out, even from the back it is nicely framed.  I can get a better picture of how it looks from the back because I don't have the blue marking lines distracting me. 

Next, I did a rather flowing what I would call "bleeding heart" design in the top and bottom portion of the inner oval.

The bleeding heart stems have circles in them and the plumes of the bleeding heart feather are alternating heart shaped and  regular shaped petals  There are 3 stocks of the bleeding hearts, with short offshots coming off to fill in the extra areas.  These offshoots have the heart shaped petals off both sides of the stem. 

I have some more done but at this time that is all I am going to post.  I will be working on it some more tomorrow and will post more updates soon. 

I hope that you will all take time to do something that you really enjoy doing.