Wonky free motion quilting

This is my quilt folded, pretending it's finished

So as I was saying, we only had a handful of trick-or-treaters. Possibly Bradley's jack-o-lantern was too scary? I will have to alert him to this issue.

But now, onto the quilting. I finished my second quilt top a long time ago, the Denyse Schimdt Single Girl, but since basting it together, it has languished around being a big disappointment. This is because I made a few choices for it that I later regretted.

This is the hand-quilted part

First of all I used muslin for the background, and once it was finished it suddenly seemed a bit drab to me and I wasn't crazy about it. I had considered a white cotton initially but it seemed too bright next to some of the vintage prints. So there's that.

Then I also decided to experiment and used curtain interlining for the batting. It's sort of soft and fuzzy and thinner than the other batting I've used so I thought it would be easier to do nice fine hand-quilting. Plus it was an inexpensive option. But once it was all pin-basted together the lining seemed to make the whole quilt sort of heavy and droopy. So there's that.

Then I decided that I would hand quilt it. As I expected with the thin "batting" I could do nice tiny stitches. I used the circle design suggested by the pattern. But once I had finished three rows I wasn't thrilled. It just didn't seem quilted enough, there were large areas that I felt would need lots more quilting. Which would take ages. Especially as I wasn't motivated to finish it since I didn't love my quilt anymore.

So enough complaining, because.. I've sorted it all out! I decided that I would cut my losses and switch to machine quilting. I decided on free-motion quilting because I have a darning foot already for my Bernina, and I don't have a walking foot yet. Plus I wanted to try free-motion. And I love it! I love the way it looks, I love the way it feels and I like the muslin now. Even the interlining seems right now, it's a thin quilt (which was the original plan, I like thin quilts) but with a nice textured feel. And it's so pretty!

Detail of the machine quilting

I did a very simple scribbled loop pattern, just the same loop over and over, one column at a time. It seemed like an easy way to start and I like the design. There are lots of mistakes but you'd really have to examine the quilt to spot them, so I just don't care. Which isn't like me at all. I may do more hand quilting someday, but somehow for this quilt, machine quilting has been the answer. It does mean I will have to undo lots of hand quilting.. yuck.. but I really think it's worth it.