Red and White Experimentation

Before getting started on two red and white quilts that will be part of an AQS Red and White Book, I decided to play a bit on one of my own.

After taking a picture of the quilt top and drawing on my print out....I started with my vinyl drawings and then went for it. If you look closely at the very outer edge of the red and white border print ...that was my inspiration for the triangles and heart shape flower motif in the white borders. I used the points in the border as registration spacing. Since the side borders are longer than the top and bottom, I had to do a little symmetical sizing right at the middle of the quilt so that the eye continues to move around the quilt.

Outer Border

 

On the printed Jinny Beyer Monochrome border print, I used the printed motif itself as my guide for quilting 3 separate passes to outline various elements of the motifs. A very busy print, so just get it quilted sufficiently.

 

Inner Border

 

When I got to the right inner border, my brain flipped where I was putting the heart flower motif. Whoops! I debated whether to leave it and add it all the way around or take it out. I was liking the triangles left UNquilted. I considered letting the right and bottom inner borders be opposite, but ultimately I went ahead and stitched how I wanted it to be and then removed the 4 'outer stitched' elements afterwards. This way I saw what it looked like if I had done it both ways. A dab of water after removing the thread and it looked as good as never stitched.
















I wasn't so sure how I wanted to quilt the zigzags and chose to let the fabric help me out a bit ... maybe too much. The two medium value fabrics were quite busy so it wouldn't have mattered too much what I did with them. Took the opportunity to practice a feather with pearl stem and lots of bubbles. I came back and did the red parts at the end since I had started out with white thread on the machine.

 

The lightest zigzag had small red circles. This quilting doesn't seem to fit the design at all, so isn't a good choice, but I am glad I tried it anyway. The second iteration went much better and I was able to do the entire set in one pass with the exception of the inner circles.

The middle red motif is taken from the red printed border kind of a fleur de lis shape. The swirls in the upper portion of each are too tight to see relative to the background quilting. The lower red elements I put the same heart flower motif as was in the border and an 'S' in each corner. In this picture you also see the mid-point of the quilt so the borders are adjusted a little bit 'long' on the triangles at the mid point to accomodate the sizing.

Here is the backside. I'm saving a full front view for later in the year as part of the  Red and White Challenges.

So...I hope I've got my mojo sufficiently back to get going again. Next up...the two red and white quilts. Come back for some sneak peaks next week.