Good Morning, Quilters!
As you know, I spent most of last week in Denver filming my second Craftsy video.
It’s taken me a few days to wade through the piles of laundry and now I’m digging in to a long overdue project.
This birthday quilt is for my sister, Pat (Hi, Pat!) and was created by my Mom, sisters, Pat’s daughters and a few sewing sisters.
I’m so excited to get started on it and give it the time it deserves!
WHERE TO BEGIN – THE BIG QUILT
My Mom always said, “When you don’t know where to begin, just begin!”
It’s amazing how often I say that to myself!
I am often subject to “paralysis by analysis”…I don’t know what I want to do, so I don’t do anything…
Most of the time, the best thing I can do is “just begin”.
STABILIZING THE QUILT
Begin quilting the stabilization lines.
Every quilt needs to be stabilized.
In this quilt, I began stabilizing around the borders (see Ann Petersen’s Craftsy Class: Big Quilts, Small Machine, Better Results) Ann’s theory is that the borders are the most important area to keep straight and that if your quilt is well basted, you can stabilize the borders first and ease the center. This is a very reasonable theory to me, so I’m giving it a whirl on this quilt. (PS…Ann also does a great job demonstrating how to spray baste a large quilt!)
BONDING WITH YOUR QUILT
Once I stabilized the entire quilt-borders and blocks– I stitched each basket.
To do this, I stitched very close to each of the handles and in the ditch of every triangle.
So far, this has taken 7-1/2 hours. I’m not in any rush—I am bonding with the quilt!
While I stitch all the stabilization, I am starting to get a feel for the fabric and the motifs and am thinking about possible ways to quilt it.
The ideas are flowing now….
More ideas than if I stared at the quilt for 7-1/2 hours! It’s amazing!
NEXT STEPS-TIME TO DOODLE!
Now that I have some ideas, I will trace the basket and make several copies of it in my sketchbook and doodle a few options…
What about YOU?
How do YOU bond with your quilts? Where do you start when you don’t know where to start?
We’d LOVE to hear!
Lori
PS…All tutorials, images and information are the property of Lori Kennedy at The Inbox Jaunt and are intended for personal use only. Feel free to re-blog, pin or share with attribution to The Inbox Jaunt. For all other purposes, please contact me at lckennedy@hotmail.com. Thanks!
