I couldn’t show you then what I was planning with these because it was a gift and my husband assured me the recipient, who reads this blog, would guess right away that it was her birthday gift. Now that the birthday has come and gone I can share.
The pattern is “Around the Table” by Karen Neary. The center mat is paper pieced in sections. Apparently this is reversible too. I was so focused on the piecing that it didn’t occur to me but it did occur to the gift’s recipient.
My latest quilt is half quilted so I should be working on that but I couldn’t wait to share a picture so I’m blogging instead.
Nothing except the outline quilting in the white star is quilted the way I had originally planned. I had to unpick some of that original plan when I realized it didn’t look like I had imagined. I like this much better.
I’m happy to report that my freemotion is improving, with fewer miniscule stitches and better consistency in stitch length overall. I still have to mark everything though. Freehand just isn’t working out. I don’t even do background filler very well. I just can’t get the random look so I avoid filler.
I was rather critical of my work on Wednesday evening, focusing on the wobbles and inconsistencies in the quilting in the sashing and wishing I could make this spectacular like the quilts over at Tamarack Shack (if you haven’t been there yet, be warned, her custom quilting is pure eye candy and may make you drool). My newly minted teen (turned 13 on Saturday, how did that happen?) looked at me and said “I like it. Sometimes simple is best. And this is what, your 4th machine quilted quilt?” Yes. “And how long have all those other quilters been machine quilting?” More years than me. Trust a kid to put it all in perspective!
So here’s a picture of the kid’s 13th birthday cake, because he knows I posted a picture of his sister’s, though of course my two angels would never think of keeping track of such things!
