Water, Water, Everywhere

Didn't think I would get to post this week, but found some time today to say there has been some progress on the lake quilt. The progress is hard to see in this photo, because all I've worked on is the water...and there's a whole lot of it.

The water in the upper half of the quilt (where you don't see pins anymore) has been free-motion quilted. Kind of hard to see here, but that's ok, because I want the water fabric to speak for itself.

That said, I had a heck of a time choosing the threads for it. I started out with this conglomeration:

But trying to figure out, much less mark, where all of the sections of these colors would meet up or overlap, just drove me crazy. And then I remembered all the gorgeous, variegated thread my friend Janet gave me for Christmas (in a beautiful fabric basket she'd made). Tada.....!!!


(Bad) early photo of lake quilt inside transparent vinyl, marked 'light' and 'dark' with dry-erase markers.

These spools are 'Rainbows' by Superior Threads. Oh. My. Gosh. The way they stitch out (sorry, I'm a novice with them, so excuse my enthusiasm)...incredibly beautiful. This photo doesn't really do them justice.

What it does show clearly, along with the photo below, is something I hadn't encountered with any other landscape quilt. This one is larger than any others I've made, so the scale of the quilting needed to be larger, meaning keeping the stitching lines further apart, as well (or so I was thinking). Also, the background (water) fabric is not stabilized and is of course the first layer of fabric atop the batting. So, long story short...I wasn't prepared for the soft puckering that occurred between the lines of stitching.

The reassuring thing is, after the rest of the elements--rocks, turtles, grass, etc.--are quilted, there will be the option of adding more stitching to the water. That should diminish, if not eliminate, the puckering (and some people don't really mind puckering--it's just not something I'm used to with all of my previous, denser quilting using polyester batting). Even so, one thing to keep in mind is that the density of the overall quilting needs to be fairly consistent. Otherwise the quilt can end up with some narrow sections and some wide sections---and by the time you square all of that up, your landscape may look totally out of proportion! Not good.

At any rate, quilting is coming to a halt here for a couple of weeks. The next two days will be spent doing laundry and packing, and Monday I'll head out with my son and daughter-in-law to visit her family in Jackson, Wyoming--a part of the country I've never seen. Yesterday a friend said to me, "Oh Linda, you won't believe how beautiful it is there," so I'm more excited than ever about taking my camera for new landscape quilt inspiration. Whoop whoop!

Taken this week at the house of a family friend in WY

Everyone have a wonderful weekend, and try to stay cool. It was ninety-five degrees yesterday here in Kentucky. Wyoming should be a bit cooler, but with the weird weather everywhere these days, who knows? Crossing my fingers, as hiking and rafting--more water!!--are on the schedule. Whoop whoop again! :) And that's my segue over to Whoop Whoop Friday. I love what Sarah is doing for her granddaughters for Christmas. Check out her reader hookups, too. Also hooking up with Leah Day's FMQ Friday. She's hitting the road, same as I am, but her trip is definitely quilt related. Check it out, along with her reader hookups.

See you in a couple of weeks!