As this quilt was a Christmas gift and a surprise I couldn't post any pictures of 'quilt in progress'. So here are some now that it is finished. This was another 'stack n whack' or '4 patch posy' quilt and I absolutely loved the process from start to finish. It is amazing that each block is totally unique. The oriental fabric had a 24" repeat and once I had cut each stacked strip across the width of the fabric I then chose where to start cutting each square so that none repeated. I wanted to have a panel area of the chosen fabric so that you could work out where each square had come from. Working out how to leave enough material to do that, and the size of the sashing certainly tested my mental capacities somewhat!
I was not able to have more practice time on my new frame - so there were a few times I had trouble with breaking thread - and therefore loopy bits on the back of the quilt. I put this down to the fact I had just used fleece and no wadding so therefore only two layers were being quilted. I did play around with the tension though and was much happier once I gained a little more confidence.
This was my first go at using a pantograph. I traced my design onto some continuous fold paper I had left from the old days of dot matrix printers! It worked a treat. The design I had chosen complimented the 'oriental' look to this quilt, and was a 4" width - so by putting the quilt width wise on my frame I still had enough room to finish the quilting when the rolled up part began to fill my machine arm. Christmas was fast approaching and I didn't have time to go out and buy material for the binding, but managed to find some from my stash that worked.
Using a frame with my Juki machine will have limitations compared to a full long arm machine, but I am sure I will get round them and now I can begin planning some more 'arty' quilts.
