Aspen Autumn, Finished!

Greetings Blog Friends,

Aspen Autumn is finished!

 

As you can see, Aspen Autumn is very linear, very vertical.  I think I was right when I felt that an all-over curved meander quilting pattern was best for this project.  I know that I like the finished piece.  It is by no means perfect, and I need to practice more with free motion to try to get more uniform stitches.  But, I think it is not bad for a first attempt.  For me, it's definitely a keeper.

 

Next time...a new project in the works.  Snack Attack!

 



Aspen Autumn, Finishing Stages

Blog Friends,

I am happy to report that Aspen Autumn is in the final, finishing stage.  I completed the quilting on it today, and hope to finish the binding tomorrow night.

I quilted Aspen Autumn with a large meander (stipple) pattern.  It was my first attempt at free motion quilting.  Up until this quilt, almost all of the quilting I did by machine was straight line stitching.  Because Aspen Autumn is so linear (you'll see what I mean when I post the final picture), I wanted something different and decided on the large meander in a random pattern. 

As I said, I had not done any free motion quilting up until this time.  To prepare, I watched several very good videos on line and picked up some quilting tips.  I also did some practice stitching each night.  I had some (not so favorite) fabric along with some leftover batting from previous projects.  I made myself some quilt sandwiches, and filled each one with random curves and shapes.  

After a week's worth of practice, I felt it was "now or never", and decided to just do it.  The quilting is not perfect, I have some uneven stitches here and there, and some jerky stop/start points.  I tried to do most of my stops and starts in the darker gray fabric.  If I was grading this, I'd give myself a solid C... for satisfactory but not outstanding.  But, I'm happy with it (because it is done!) and am going to display it each fall. 

Next post will be the finished quilt!