Vol 2 - Project 4 - Irish Garden (Milly's Quilt) - Quilting

After prepping this quilt I spend a couple of frustrating hours trying to get my quilting brain to kick in.  It just wasn't happening, the butterflies weren't working and I gave up.  Instead I distracted myself with a couple of NHP's (Non Harriet Projects) I've been working on.  These are a hexagon top I'm making by hand (don't all beginners make a hexy quilt?) and a crazy quilt which is loads of fun, allowing me to be more creative, a sometimes necessary change from all the precision and rules of the book quilts and I'm having an excellent time using non-cotton fabrics and pictures in my blocks.

Anyway - Milly's Quilt.  The call came Friday night that baby was on the way, (over a week early of course) so I spent a panicked Saturday furiously working at getting this quilt finished.  I'd chosen a plain-ish backing and I couldn't resist marking and quilting from the back, the front of the quilt having such busy fabrics.

Besides, the squares made by the ditch stitching was too hard to resist - so much easier to see!

The marking was finished by lunch-time (a record for me I think) and the quilting begun.  I'm still having trouble controlling stitch length, but this time around at least my brain kicked into quilting mode after a bit of a warm up.

The quilting is really hard to see from the front - honestly, I don't know why I bother, with such busy fabrics perhaps it's better to just concentrate on texture rather than design for the quilting.

Personally, I think the quilt looks better from the back - pretty pink polka dots and the quilting can be seen.

By 5.30 in the afternoon, it was all done and the binding started.  On Sunday the binding was finished and the quilt washed and drying on the table.  Whew!  Amelia Jayne was finally born late on Sunday night, a healthy 8lbs ?? (details are sketchy - Mum was tired)!  My first granddaughter!

I'm off to the mainland on Wed to say hello to Milly and give the new mum a hand.  It would have been nice to have Bryce's quilt finished as well, but I'm not going to try.  Rush jobs are rarely as nice and it's a pity really - the borders on Milly's quilt are rather wonky (by that time I was tired and just wanted to finish).

I'll be gone from the sewing room for a while - it's hand pieced hexy's till I get back to Tasmania.