Quilting Stars

I've been busy quilting Thing One of the Twin Hugs. I commandeered the dining room table for the pin basting, then continued to hog the space until I finally finished the stars this morning.

I had a choice (one always does): keep the Brother in its spot

and clear out all this from around it (or risk having it swept to the floor),

or move the machine to the bar-height dining room table and sit perched on the edge of the chair for several days.

Perching for the win!

The pattern I'm using for each block is, as mentioned before, a single-line design of FMQ hearts and stitch-in-the-ditch. For each block I started with a side heart

then continued along the square's edge to the corner and added another heart there.

I continued in this manner around the star. This is all done with the feed dogs lowered. For the first few stars, I was lowering the feed dogs and lessening the presser foot pressure when I'd get to the star spots, then raising the feed dogs and increasing the pressure in order to SitD along the straightaways. I forgot to do that once, and realized I was perfectly capable of free-handing the SitD. That sped things up considerably!

At this point in the block, I do raise the feed dogs again and increase the foot pressure.

This gives me the mechanical advantage for the next stage of straight line SitD quilting: the points.

Once I'm back at my initial starting point, I put a square in the square and call the block quilted.

Some blocks have an intricate center, so for them I'll add one more line of SitD quilting across the center to stabilize the pieces further:

These are the colors I've been playing with:

 

I've been letting the center square of each block dictate what color of thread to use. Sometimes that results in the hearts melting into the background as in the yellow and red block above (demonstrating my quilting steps). Sometimes it means there's a nice contrast going on with the hearts. (I saved those blocks until I was sure of my technique.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The left-most cone in the thread picture is my bobbin thread, Aurifil #2340. I really like how it blends into all the stripes in the backing:

This was draped sideways. These rows really run horizontally across the back of the quilt.