Staying on the rails: straight line quilting Big Momma

Straight-line quilting is a bit of a novelty for me; usually I free motion quilt with swirling, loopy designs. But the though of doing such dense, time-consuming work on a king-sized quilt like a Big Momma filled me with dread. Plus I was concerned that the end product would be too stiff. This is meant to be a bed quilt after all, it shouldn't lay stiff and flat on the bed! Big Momma is suppose to drape gracefully not sit pert like the cherry on top of a cake! So out came the walking foot.

I decided to quilt the diagonal lines rather than the horizontal ones in order to give the quilt so movement and dynamism. Also, it ended up creating little pinwheel blocks where the lines intersect, which is extra cool!

 The downside of quilting on a diagonal is that the length of each quilting line is often longer than the length of the quilt itself. If I'd remembered my basic trigonometry I would have remembered that the hypothenuse is always the longest sized of the triangle. I can't believe I just used the work "hypothenuse" in relation to a quilt. Or anything for that matter.

I'm using the end of the diagonals as a guide, running the edge of my walking foot along it. Happily the walking foot is 5/8" on both sides so I can be fairly flexible about which direction I sew. Which is particularly helpful when I'm trying to squeeze the entire quilt through the throat of my machine!

I've also unexpectedly had to mark the diagonal lines in the border where these isn't a seam to follow. At 6" its just too long a seam to guess. I thought I'd be able to wing it but think that the end result of my "guesstimating" a straight line would be less than impressive. Happily it's fairly easy to grab a ruler and a Frixon pen and zip those lines out.

I'm also going out of my comfort zone by using Aurifil cotton thread to quilt with. Usually I use Isacord but, as these are straight lines and I'm not building up thread anywhere by going over lines, I think the Aurifil can take it. Fingers crossed but no tension issues yet.

I'm hoping that by the end of the weekend I might be ready for binding. Squee!

I'm back and guess what I've finished?!

I realise that the title for this particular blog might be Stephen King's Shining-esque but it's how I feel at the moment. I'm so glad to be back in the world of technology! I've trying to catch up with everything I've missed but first things first - Kermet and Miss Piggy broke up?! Say it isn't so!

The detox is actually continuing for another two weeks but at least I'm now allowed to use technology again. Let's hope the migraines start to behave now.

Any way, back to quilt news. On the days when I was able to do something practical I got on with the  double pinwheel king-sized quilt and guess what? Yep, the top is pieced, the binding is made and the back is pressed. Short of pre winding the bobbins, I'm ready for basting! I (and probably you) never though this moment would arrive.

I'm not a fan of basting (is anyone?) but I have my semi-willing assistant poised and ready to assist so hopefully it shouldn't take too long.

I would show you a picture of the top but, hand on heart, I actually don't have anywhere big enough to lay it all out fully. I've renamed it "Big Momma" in honour of its size. It's 102" by 120" so it's going to be a squeeze to even bast it in halves on our conservatory floor. If we manage it I'll try and take pics.

In the meantime here's a reminder of what a quarter of it looks like. Please excuse the feet.

And here's it all scrunched up as I finished sewing the last 6" border on.

Two finishes in eight months isn't bad right? Oh dear.