Geraniums

This week I've been trying to finish up some projects that have been sitting around for long periods of time, which generally means that I need to machine quilt them. The threadwork I did on my hummingbird quilt earlier this year convinced me not to be afraid of finishing this small quilt depicting geraniums (pattern by Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts).


I did some threadwork on the blossoms as well as on the leaves and was quite fortunate that I could go out and rip a leaf off a live geranium plant for reference as to how the veins on geranium leaves actually run. I never would have gotten them correct if I hadn't referred to the real thing and had instead worked from my memory of leaves! This close up below should give you a pretty decent idea of what I did.


I used a wash-away stabilizer for the first time and it really worked like a charm! I wasn't certain whether it really would wash out, but the gooey-ness disappeared after you rinsed it for long enough! Amazing what they can do these days!

Finally, for the quilting, I tried a few new things. Along the right-side vertical band, I tried a watery-like quilting pattern that I thought would echo the grain of the fabric. I really liked the technique, found it was pretty easy to get good stitch length and I love the feel and texture it creates. I was stumped by how to quilt the table underneath the flower pot and in the end, decided to quilt it following some of the lines in the batik, which meant a very free-form design. Ben expressed some concern, but in the end, I was quite pleased with how it turned out.

I did do all of my free-motion quilting without my BSR, mainly because I was too lazy to get up and find it and attach it. But it's also getting to the point for some of these projects that I don't need it! And that's very exciting!