Lily Rose: Getting Ready for Quilting

Yesterday I had a quiet afternoon and decided it was time to take the plunge with washing Lily Rose. I had concerns with further colour leaking in the wash from the batiks I hadn't colour tested and after salvaging the fabric from one disaster, I have been worried about 'ghosting' from the stain.

I have Synthrapol in my cupboard from my hand dyeing days. When I had my Lily Rose disaster and blogged about it back in February, I was reminded of how useful it could be. Speaking of colour run disasters, Vicki Welsh shared her blog over in those comments, she has a 'save my bleeding quilt' area that is full of useful info and I have added her button to my sidebar now. I recommend reading the info for the sake of it, just so you have that knowledge in case you ever need to use it. I did have a lot more working knowledge regarding dyeing back when I was doing it frequently, about 12 years ago now, but it's a case of out of sight, out of mind for me!

I'm relived that Lily Rose is fine and now that it's dried and ironed, its ready for squaring up as I prepare for quilting. I always say, 'quilting is what makes a quilt, a quilt'and its much the same with a wall hanging. Today as I prepare Lily Rose, I'm already thinking about shapes and lines that will be useful as I quilt. 

Looking over Lily Rose, I'm really happy with the colour balance in the patchwork and overall generally. I love the pop of the aqua and the gold and the bouquet is just right in my own opinion. So I'm thinking of completely neutral quilting in a neutral thread colour as I want to quilt and bring out the quilt itself, rather than the quilting.

Because of the oval shape in the centre, I'm feeling that the oval will need more concentrated lines to keep the shape nice. I get this feeling because the fabric I used from my stash in the gold was a little lighter than I would have liked ideally and I did go ahead and add some extra batting to plump out the frame too.

I measure precisely, clipping as I go to get everything neat and lined up. Ideally, I would love to have this quilt basted for me, but it's quite expensive for what is an easy task for me, especially at this size. I would really love to have all my quilts basted prior to quilting, but the cost often doesn't justify the means. I find that with my larger quilts, I find this process much more time consuming and physically involved, but with Lily Rose, I can make do on my table.

I was really excited when I first purchased these 'pins' a few years ago (4? 5? years ago now?) but really haven't found them to be useful to me at all. In the beginning I though they were great and I also thought they would cut down on my pinning time. To be honest, they get in the way. It's just the way I work and do things, I find them to be more trouble than assistance for me because of my own pinning style and they only come in handy with smaller wall hangings and projects, so this has been the first time I've seen and used them in quite a while.

I'd love to know if anyone else uses them. How do you find them?

  stitches in, ready for quilting 

I'm not even considering using my Bernina 820 to quilt Lily Rose. This year has been non stop hectic for me and I have a deadline for quilting Lily Rose, I physically do not have the time to deal with issues. For me, a lost afternoon can be the difference between showing this quilt - or not. So I'm not taking any chances. I have pulled out my old Brother and will be quilting with that machine this week.