Marking quilt and quilting

[Renata L.]

Sharon, your quilt is lovely! Thank you so much for the closeup attachment too--I'm curious about what looks like the letter "P" quilted into the border?

[Sharon E.]

Renata, I did what Janet did on her quilt. I shadow quilted all the letters around the border. If you follow the machine embroidery every so often is a letter. It's very subtle, but looks great on the quilt. The "a" starts on the left side by the tree and then goes around with the "z" ending back on the left border tree.

Thanks for the lovely comments.

Sharon

[Charae H.]

WOW!!! Sharon, this is gorgeous. You have inspired me to get back to mine. Still need to do blue borders with applique', etc., etc. but your cross hatching is so great I can't wait to give it a try myself. Good luck at the show you've entered this in. Sure looks like a big winner to me!
Charae

[Pamela N.]

Hi Sharon, I love the shadow quilted letters on your quilt (all the quilting is beautiful), how did you do the shadow quilting for the letters on the border? I put off the quilting on my 2014 BOM, however it's going really well and not as daunting as I thought it would be Good Luck in the show, it looks like a winner to me.
Best wishes Pam

[Sharon E.]

Thanks Pam for the lovely comments. I actually scrutinized Janet's quilt and got on Word on my computer and started playing with fonts that could be quilted easily. I then printed them, cut them out and then traced them on the quilt. I made them big enough to see. I believe for the a, c, etc. they were about 1" big and then, of course, the d, f, h letters were bigger than 1", probably 2" when all quilted. For the letters that had holes, i.e., d, o, p, etc. I did stipple in those areas to recede that part. Also after I quilted the letter I went around it very closely as an outline, probably less than 1/8". That way when I did the stippling, it had somewhere to rest and not get "into" the letter. I hope this makes sense. I will look through my pictures and see if there is a better closeup of a letter or two to show you. Its interesting to hear people at the shows, go "Oh, she quilted letters into the border" because you don't see them until you get up close.

[Sharon E.]

Sorry ladies these pictures are big, but hopefully it will help with how I did it. I have to admit, I am not very creative and really do try to match the original quilting. I need to get out of my box one of these days.

Sharon in CO

[Lois B.]

Nothing like learning from the experts before you jump out of that box.

[Beverly C.]

Sharon, a big THANK YOU for the detailed information on how you went about doing the quilted border letters! AND for the pictures too, I'm about half-way on making the letter blocks and am ready to get moving on finishing it up. More pictures would be terrific!

[Beverly C.]

Yes Sharon - thanks for posting more pictures and details!
Barb

[Sharon E.]

Lois, Janet is a fantastic expert.

Beverly, one thing about this quilt is it fussy, meaning lots of details and it drove me crazy. I need to get it out to lay out for the fair coming up and will try to take some close up pictures. Mine is by no means perfect, but very happy with it.

Sharon

[Pamela N.]

Sharon thank you so much for the details, photos and explaining how to shadow quilt the border letters, your help is very much appreciated. This was such a lovely quilt to make and now I am enjoying quilting it. More pictures would be terrific but I am more than grateful for your help.
Best Wishes Pam

[Nancy R.]

You already know how much I love your quilt, Sharon!

Thought I would pipe up with another idea for marking the letters for quilting. What I would probably try instead of marking, would be to print the letters on freezer paper and cut them out. Then iron them on the quilt and quilt around the freezer paper. Then you don't have to mark and it's really easy to see the edges of the letters since you can print them in any color that contrasts with the background fabric. Just a thought for others, since I just don't have time to make this quilt myself.

[Beverly C.]

Sharon, I look forward to every picture you want to post! Nancy, great idea on the freezer paper. Sharon, when marking any areas of your quilt, what did you use?

[Sharon E.]

Beverly, I used a Frixion on the cream background and actually used it for the letters too. I did test it first and quilted the letters very carefully. Nancy, that is a great idea for transferring any designs or letters to the quilt. I am entering her in a little quilt show in the park in Berthoud next weekend. Just a fun little show and a car show for the guys.

More pictures in the next few days.

Sharon

[Sharon E.]

One other comment on marking, on the darker areas I like to use a chalk pencil and have very good results with it.

Sharon