Happily Quilted

It took me three short nights of quilting, but I think I've finally got Happy Go Lucky quilted the way I imagined.

Inspired by the beautiful quilting on this Herringbone Linen Quilt by Latifah Saafir, I stitched across my straight lines, changing the angle at each straight line. I ran these stitches in sets of two or three across the length of the quilt - with absolutely no pattern or guide for how far apart they should be or how many I should do.

My biggest concern had been how such a straight line approach to the quilting would look against the very floral backing material, but I think it worked out well.

The straight lines alone didn't work - but somehow adding those angled lines changed it up enough that (to me) the quilting no longer clashes with the fabric pattern. I'm very relieved - I spent the first session of quilting fearing that I would flip it over only to face the news that I would have to rip it out and come up with another plan!

I rushed outside with the camera the minute I finished - just in time to grab a few photos before the sun went down. Oh, I'm so thankful for these longer, summer days!

I'm quite smitten with it - even though yes, the quilting took longer than I'd hoped (about 5 hours for a baby-size quilt) and yes, it was a bit more intensive than what I usually go for. For the first time, I missed my old Singer, which could stop needle down or up depending on when I released the pedal. Working with my Janome, which always stops needle up, meant that I had to stop before I reached the line, then approach by hand (either cranking or using one of the buttons) until I hit the line, stop needle down, adjust the quilt, then I was free to use the pedal for almost two inches before beginning the slow approach again. There's got to be a better way to do that - but I don't know how with my current machine. I love the resulting look, but unless I find a faster way to do it, it simply isn't practical for anything larger than this little one.

I had hoped to have enough of the backing material leftover to make the binding from it, but I wasn't quite so lucky in that aspect. So, after a trim down, I expect Happy Go Lucky will be joining the Monkeys in the 'wait until I buy more material' stack. And this one could be even trickier - unlike the Monkeys (which just needs the right shade of red), I have absolutely no idea what kind of final touch I should be looking for to complete this one. Looking at things might change my opinion, but I think neither solid nor stripe... but I'm also thinking floral would be over doing it. What's left?! Guess I've got some shopping ahead of me next time I have a few minutes...