Last night was the first Friday Night with Friends of 2015. In the first Friday of every month a bunch of ladies from across the globe sit and sew knowing that they have virtual company. As I mentioned in this post, my AYoLF (A Lovely Year of Finishes) goal for January is to finish the Flying Zebra child’s quilt, so that’s what I chose to work on last night.
I started by doing some simple stitch in the ditch all around the center section and then I attempted (more or less) to stitch along each side of those horizontal rainbow lines. I say attempted because the lines aren’t straight but have little dips and curves so if you look at the back of the quilt it looks like I’d had a bit too much wine!
On the blue sections between the flying zebra sections, I decided to try something new to me. I’ve been seeing cross hatch quilting being used on quilts here and there about the net and like the look it creates so I went in search of a tutorial. Cross Hatched Quilting Without Tears over at Quiet Play was one of the best I found.
I only had one teeny tiny pucker on the very last cross hatch line but once the quilt is washed that won’t even be noticeable. The white lines I drew as a guide will also disappear with washing.
Cross hatching did take me longer than it would have to simply sew several straight lines through those blue sections but I really like how it took a bare space and made it a nice feature in the quilt. I just hope that the cross hatching in the other blue section goes as smoothly.
Over the weekend, I’ll be burying all those thread ends you see. That way I won’t have a marathon of thread burying when I finish quilting. I think I’ve mentioned before that task is my least favorite part of quilting.
After that, I’ll work on the other blue section and the top and bottom flying zebra sections. Then it will be time to decide how to quilt the borders. With the smaller UFOs like this child’s quilt, my goal is to use them to practice different new-to-me quilting techniques to see which ones I might want to use on the larger of the quilts.
I’ll also take some time during the weekend to check out what the other FNwF ladies worked on last night. And if the weather forecast holds true, our cold snap is supposed to ease. I might even be able to get out and go for a short walk tomorrow.
Whatever your plans are for the weekend, I hope you find time to do something that you love!
4 Comments
Sherry V.
January 11, 2015 12:23 pmI like the cross hatching. At the moment my “go to” quilting is a simple meander….but I really need to branch out more.
Great progress on a lovely quilt.
Mary
January 10, 2015 11:12 pmI always like the look of cross hatching on quilts and yours looks great on that quilt.
Vickie Horsfall
January 10, 2015 10:44 pmWhat a fun quilt and I love that you used the cross hatch quilting. It does add a different element to the quilt instead of just straight lines. I have not tried this type of stitch before, but it may be in my future. Have fun finishing the rest of it with your virtual sewing ladies!
Stephanie
January 10, 2015 6:28 pmSue, an easy way of burying threAds is to use. The self threading needles. You just have to pop the thread in the grooves and slide into the quilt. also, if you do as many continuous lines as possible less ends. I bought Fons and Porter self threading needles at Joans.
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