Quilting Serenade Part 2

First I auditioned several threads to see what they would look like actually stitched out on the purple silk fabric.  I decided to quilt all the feathered designs in a bold color and quilt the background with a thread that closely matches the background.  The motif quilting thread I chose was stitched out on the bottom right and is Floriani Machine Embroidery Thread that is a 40 wt. 2 ply thread with a nice sheen.  The background thread is YLI Silk size 100 in a dark purple color.  I made a small quilt sandwich and quilted small feathers to judge which one of the bold threads I wanted to use and tried out several threads and colors.I tried something new to help grip the quilt under the needle and move it smoothly.  I like Machinigers gloves but this worked pretty well too as it was easy to readjust and still have use of my fingers to grab threads.  I cut two pieces about the size of my palm from rubberized shelf liner - you know the stuff you put on the shelves in the cupboards.  This worked very well and easy to reposition for quilting a new area.

The quilting has begun.  I used wool batting and as the feathered star points are quilted it puffs up around them.  My goal is to quilt down the background and then have those tiny feathers puff up instead once it is finished.

This puffiness was a bit of a problem as I had to make sure I squished it down flat as I quilted.  I sure didn’t want to quilt any pleats in the front or back of the quilt.  I had used basting spray to make my quilt sandwich but in hindsight I should have probably basted the three layers together very closely with thread and maybe some of that extra puffiness might have been controlled.
I had to concentrate intensely to quilt the tiny feathers that are less than 1/4” wide and about 1/4” long.  I took lots of breaks so the quilting didn’t progress too quickly so guess that is what I will do right now....take a break, not too long though.

Until later,
Lynn