Machine Quilting

The weekend found me in the mood to work on my machine quilting.  I know, it's a Christmas quilt and not in any immediate need of being finished, but it is on my UFO Bucket List.  And, I like to rotate between projects, depending on my mood.

Crimson Tweed. Pattern by Sue Spargo

For some reason when working on this quilt, I preferred not to use my Bernina Basic Stitch Regulator and instead I used  quilting foot #9.  I set my stitch length and width at zero and did not lower the feed dogs.  With this closed toe foot, I was able to easily stitch very closely to my wool appliqués without the foot getting caught on them.  

You will notice that I did not add any quilting to the actual appliqués in this quilt as one might normally do.  I decided to "respect the wool" and my hand stitching (love those French knots)  and leave the appliqués  alone!

Bernina #9 quilting foot

Close up of machine quilting.

Yup, more machine quilting.

I also tackled 2 of the borders and spent quite some time doodling on paper to come up with a design.   The hardest part of machine quilting for me is still the design part.  With this border  stitching plan, I didn't need to double stitch over my blue border ditch quilting at all but instead made my turns in the batting and fabric edge.

Sketching out quilting design ideas for border.

Marking border quilting lines.

The top and right side border quilting is up next.  Since they are appliquéd, they will need a different quilting design after outline stitching.  But... today it's back to my snowflake quilt.  Crimson Tweed goes back into UFO land for now.

Bottom border quilting.