I am so delighted to be writing this progress update post on Thursday evening. It does mean that I have had to pause in making more progress, but it feels so incredibly good to be working on something I can share about again!!
Signal Trace – Basted
It rained here on Tuesday, making it a perfect time to piece the backing (it’s just a single seam) and baste Signal Trace. My husband called on his lunch break while I was basting the quilt, and he asked how I was going to quilt Signal Trace. I did not have a good answer, but I knew that I wanted to do some free motion quilting. He reminded me that he really likes the “rounded robot” motif, which is a variation that puts rounded corners on a straight, boxy meander.
Rounded Robot – Quilting Sample
I couldn’t remember the last time I free motion quilted rounded robot. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve quilted this motif since I sold my longarm. So, after getting Signal Trace basted on Tuesday afternoon, I put together a quick fat quarter quilt sandwich and set about to do a bit of practice quilting.
My lines are far from perfectly straight, but gosh, I love the texture! I’m grateful for my husband’s suggestion; the quilting sample gave me confidence the rounded robot motif will work out well for this quilt.
Signal Trace – Binding Roll
The next question I had to answer was what I was going to use to bind the quilt. Well, it turns out I pretty much used up the last of my teal scraps that were used to piece the quilt top to test out the Highland Quit block (oopsy), so I cut the binding all from a single print that I added to my stash over the summer.
Signal Trace – Start of Quilting
Which brings me up to Thursday afternoon when I was able to get started quilting the actual quilt. You will likely notice that I opted not to overlap the rounded robot motif on the quilt. The quilting was progressing quickly until my tension got wonky. After removing the quilting and sorting things out again, I decided that was a sign from the universe to take a photograph and write this blog post.
As long as the tension is really fixed, I might be able to get this one finished soon, leaving me with no long term WIPs (a goal for the year – hooray!). What are you working on this week?
Perfect binding choice since you snitched all your scraps for testing. Looks like you transitioned well from “moving the pencil over the paper to moving the paper under the pencil” as Philippa Naylor once described the difference between long arm and sit down quilting. Your work is beautiful!
The texture looks just perfect! Good luck with the tension as you finish the quilting.
Thanks for showing your practice is real time. It helps to remember the quilting is a slow process and encourages me to keep trying it. What am I working on? I’m sewing some curves or the Free Wheelin Single Girl QAL, but will soon be binding my Signal Trace, so it was fun to see yours pop into my inbox!
So glad you are able to make such good progress on this one!
Really happy you found the time to get some quilting time in. I was free motion quilting a small piece yesterday. I don’t do much of that anymore – so hard on neck and shoulders – and it is surprising how much I’ve forgotten. Good luck with the quilting. Sounds like this one might be a “keeper”.
Ooh that’s looking delicious Yvonne! I haven’t done that (love your husband’s name for it) rounded robot motif in years (think the last time was a quilt for a Benartex ezine) so I’m going to add a mental note and file it away. I think Leah Day was the first person I saw using it. Yay for some teal in the stash, not surprising knowing your love of all things blue! Hope the tension is fixed, a most annoying issue(been there done that ugh).
I love the mixture of white prints you are using, can’t wait to see the finished quilt.
The quilting looks great. Hope you found a fun fabric for the binding.
This was a fun post, with a FMQ video and all. I also follow that advice to practice first on a smaller quilt sandwich before tackling the quilt. I find not only do I get to try out designs, but it helps me find my quilting mojo and makes it easier to get to the sewing on the real thing. Love the binding!