I’m feeling a little like the local news but Marilyn asked a question and I thought I’d answer it here:
How do you decide what quilting pattern to put on each quilt? Since many of your quilts are string quilts, I see you don’t quilt them all the same. Do the quilts ‘talk’ to you and tell you what they want? Or do you just get in the mood to quilt something different on different nights? I’m learning different quilting patterns and learning to listen to my quilts now so any advice you can give would be much appreciated.
It’s true many of the string or scrap quilts are so similar that I could probably quilt anything on them, heck I could probably do a plain meander a lot quicker than the freehand designs or pantographs I usually choose but then I’d be bored out of my mind.
So my answer to Marilyn’s question is a little of both….sometimes I pick up clues from the quilt’s purpose or fabric and other times I’m just in the mood to quilt a particular design.
I recently finished 3 different Quilts of Valor — the one last night got swirls because it’s a no brainer for me, I hadn’t done it in a while, and I love the texture I get from them, the 2nd one got freehand stars and loops because the border fabric had stars and hey, stars just suit a QOV right? The 1st one got a pantograph Ebb and Flow — another of my favorites for QOV’s because it reminds me of a flag waving in the breeze. All three quilts were essentially the same but got different quilting designs.
Now, I’ve got 9 different Happy Block quilts here from another HeartStrings project and they’ll get a variety of designs too. The first one got Bubbles — a favorite pantograph for kids quilts, and the one I’m working on tonight(pieced by Liz) is getting a panto too but this time I’m using Whirlygig which looks like a sun to me — get it? Sunshine = Bright and Happy = Happy Blocks? Click on photo to enlarge!
