Quilting as I go...

I have now finished  my Carolina (Canadiana) Christmas blocks and they are currently hanging on my design wall looking gorgeous!  I'm very excited to get this one finished.  Thank you to Bonnie Hunter from quiltville.com for this design/mystery.

I decided to try a 'quilt as you go' method because I am doing sashing on this quilt and it lends itself wonderfully to quilting each block and then merging them together...and it's going to be a king sized quilt and it will be much easier to quilt it one block at a time.

I'm using the "Twirly Tucks Variation 1" from my Quilting Designs disk (a Quiltmaker product).  I've enlarged the design to 16" and have pasted my 4 sheets of laser printer paper together to make one big design.

First I thought I would needlepunch the design and 'pounce' the quilt top, each block just before getting ready to sew it.  Great idea but the execution left something to be desired.  Some of the holes showed the chalk markings but it was not easy to follow the design.  I don't need any stumbling blocks in my way when it comes to machine quilting.

Second, I thought I would trace it onto 'tulle' and then transfer it with a quilt pencil onto the top of the quilt.  With such a big design (16" square) the tulle moved too much and the image was distorted as a result.

Third try ~ I pulled out some thicker tissue/pattern design paper and traced the design onto the tissue paper and then pinned it onto the quilt square and then quilted through the tissue.

It worked the best of the three different methods but I really hate tearing the paper away after the fact (one of the reasons I don't paper piece too much!).

If it was a sunny day I would probably tape the design to the window and then tape the quilt block on top and trace the design right onto the quilt top.  But alas, it's a dark Sunday evening and I won't have any daytime quilt time until next weekend.

Here are two of the blocks, now quilted:

On this one I used my walking foot.  Lots of moving the block around but the quilt design worked quite well.

Here's the free-motion version:

I think I did better on the walking foot except for the little humps which it stalls on (intersections).

Here's a closeup of the poinsetta block done free motion:

Not my best work but maybe they'll improve as I get a few more blocks done.

Off to feed the troops, fold some laundry and then get back to the sewing machine.

Until next time,
Mavis