I am taking a much needed break from days of working on the quilting details of Cloudy Night Sky to write this update. It’s Monday evening, October 23rd, and I’ve just finished my 5th day of adding dense straight line quilting. If I’m lucky, I’ll be done in another 4 days. Realistically, given I have an appointment to get my COVID booster this afternoon (Tuesday 10/24), it will probably take another 5 days to get it all done, and that is only if my side effects from the booster are minimal.
Cloudy Night Sky – Mark Lines with Hera Marker
Going back in time a bit, I dug in last Thursday and started with the off-white dense straight line quilting. The first step for me is to press each area and then mark out the reference lines using a Hera marker. The lines are spaced ¼” apart. I opted to mark out 3 sections to begin with because they were near one another and I suspected I could quilt them all in a reasonable amount of time.
Cloudy Night Sky – First Dense Straight Line Quilting Complete
After getting the three sections quilted and the thread tails buried, I was able to determine that on average it took me just under 30 minutes per section to mark, quilt, and bury the thread tails. In all, there are 9 of these smaller areas in the off-white and there is one large star that need the dense straight line quilting. I tackled the large star on Friday, and all I had left to finish for the off-white on Saturday morning was the final (9th) small section.
After finishing out the off-white quilting on Saturday morning, cleaning my machine, and re-threading to be ready to start on the navy dense straight line quilting, I started out feeling optimistic that I could get all 3 of the large navy stars quilted over the weekend AND a few of the smaller sections as well. That was until I timed myself marking and quilting the first large star: it took me 3 hours. After initially hoping I could get more done, I still felt very accomplished to get all 3 of the large navy stars quilted by Sunday evening.
Cloudy Night Sky – Progress as of Monday Evening 10-23-2023
On Monday, due to real life things that needed addressed which meant I had to spend time in town and away from my studio, I was able to get two of the small stars in navy quilted. The small stars took me about about 1 hour and 45 minutes each to complete.
Cloudy Night Sky – Progress as of Monday Evening 10-23-2023
If I can get two more small stars quilted on this afternoon, I’ll feel very accomplished.
Now that I know how long it takes to quilt each size section, it looks like I’ll spend a total of 34 hours doing the dense straight line quilting. I just finished 20 hours of that quilting, so I’m over halfway done, which is a relief to know. I don’t anticipate having any more updates on this until I can share the finished quilt. Just keep quilting, right?!?
The quilting looks great! But wow, that’s a significant time investment. I got both the flu and Covid booster at the same time and felt pretty crappy the next day. Fingers crossed you don’t feel so bad you can’t stitch a bit. You are so close to being done, good luck!
Your quilting is so crisp and looks so good. Do you have a limit on how long you quilt each day? Knowing I was working on a deadline, I would get frustrated with interruptions, but you’ve paced it out well.
I rarely time myself, but I know you often do, so this is good info and thank you for sharing. We put in so many hours don’t we? One tends to think straight line quilting is faster but not necessarily, especially with denser quilting such as you’re doing!
Yikes! Your quilting practice is so impressive. Hope the affects of the booster are mild (I was only really groggy one day with mine last week) and you can just keep quilting!
Love seeing this one progress!
You are moving along at a nice pace on this. I love the way it is looking, and amazed at your patience, but I know it is always worth it in the end!