Pumpkin Finish

My previous post told of my assembly of twelve pumpkin quilt blocks I won. This week I sandwiched the top with bamboo batting and barn backing and was decisive about an FMQ pattern. Although I am not good with meandering I wanted the effect of curling vines around each pumpkin. I practiced on a plastic overlay. Sometimes the loops looked graceful and sometimes they looked really wonky and created kinks in the meandering line. I studied it before I learned what was the difference. If I treated the vine just as a meander and inserted a loop all was good. If I tried to changed the direction of the vine too soon after inserting a loop it was awkward. I own a lot of training books on how to FMQ but sometimes these little innuendos of how to make a pattern look like the picture need to be learned on your own. I focused on reminding myself to exit a loop in a continuation of the direction in which I had entered it.

I also thought out what my path would be to go in and among the pumpkins. I copied a photo of the assembled top into Power Point file and played with different routes. It turns out that going midway up or down between the pumpkins worked out to be pretty efficient.

A closeup up of my "vines" shows that when I maintained the direction of the main line after inserting a loop and waited to change direction the results were smoother! I did the vines in a green variegated thread. I liked the way it turned out but my husband did not like how the vines would "disappear". Oh, well. To each his own. There is another disadvantage to using variegated thread. If the tension is not perfect, little bobs of color are more likely to show especially when a dark portion of the lower thread happens to occur where a light portion of the upper thread is or vice versa. I used the variegated thread for both the upper and bobbin threads. On the borders I did channel quilting using a ruler and following the diagonal piecing line of the two border colors at 45°.

I used a light coral thread on the orange/burgundy borders and the thread lines are double stitched. I went up and back along the same line before moving the ruler. I learned in a class that retracing is the preferred way to do a piano key border. Rather than a motion that is "up, move the ruler, down, move the ruler", I'd go "up and down, and then move the ruler". These are the tools I used – the straight edge of this 8" scallop ruler and the center pink ½" size echo foot

The parallel lines in the border and pumpkins came out looking more tidy than if I had free-handed them. Plus, I got a lot of ruler practice. I liked the effect of this diagonally pieced border from fat quarters. The concept may have been a success because the two colors were a close blend and not sharply contrasting. I think I may use the concept and contents drawn from my stash like this again.

A view from the back shows up the quilting lines since I used relatively light colored thread and the backing was dark. I like the barn print and thought it was worth piecing to use it.

The back of the quilt looks like this. Even though I had to piece the length, I think the extension fabric is pretty well camouflaged because all of the channel work serves as a distraction. My binding is sewn on by machine rather than by hand. On this quilt there is no grosgrain label as is my norm. I put my initials and the date on the front with black pigment marker where it would show on the light fabric. I've spent only a little over a week on this "free" experiment. This was meant to be a quick project, remember?

The finished quilt measures 31" x 39". I completed it on Halloween and it is ready to add to my holiday decor for the Thanksgiving season. Now I will link up to Let's Bee Social #201.