Whole Cloth Challenge

Yesterday I finished the quilting on Moon Set, the name of my nearly completed whole cloth challenge quilt. Binding or facing will be completed, probably on the plane to Chicago later this week. The determining factor for binding or facing will be when I trim it down, the quilt will let me know what it wants. I’m leaning toward facing. Susan Brubaker Knapp has a method I’d like to try so we’ll see what my time over the next couple of days brings.  As the day progressed I posted photos on Instagram – @terilucas.

It’s been a while since I stitched with metallic thread, I wanted to see how it would play on my B 780. I did not have to drop my tension down to zero as I did on my 1080. In the star I have a couple of raised stitches however the needle needed to be changed and I was doing some serious stitch over.

 Lisa Calle has a line of rulers that I’ve been wanting to play with for weeks to see if they can be used on a domestic sewing machine. And with some work yes they can. I took a moment to read the directions Lisa includes with the ruler sets. Shocking I know! She does give good, clear and pithy directions. When I commented on fb that there is a learning curve with the rulers Lisa’s response that longarm quilters have a learning curve as well. Reality: with any new tool or skill there is a learning curve.
I will blog more about this sometime soon – like within the next few weeks. You may remember I tried Angela Huffman’s ruler (read the interview here and about the ruler here) and like it so I had a good idea of how to handle the rulers before sitting down to stitch.

I used the ruler along the entire top of the quilt having some decent success once I switched to an appropriate size for the space being stitched. I started out with a 3” ruler and sized up to a 5” ruler and it made a huge difference. We all know that using the right tool for the job makes a huge difference.

For the ruler work I used black Kimono Silk thread because I wanted the quilting to be there but not be a major focus and I wanted to be able to backtrack without thread build up. On this grape Radiance the fine thread does recede to the background of the quilt.

And the completed quilt:

Some quilt notes: Lisa H
Batting: two layers Hobbs Tuscany Silk batting
Thread: Superior Kimono Silk, King Tut and Magnifico; Weeks Dye Works 40 wt and 12 wt hand dye
Needles: top stitch 70/10 and 90/14
Hours: 40 ish

I am thrilled to have completed this quilt and will be happy to deliver it later this week. One final major job complete as I head full tilt into the book project.

Happy Quilting!

Teri