Okay, Count me in!

[E.M. T.]

Renata...sure do like the sparkle-y nature of your quilt. Lots of movement! One of the things the makes these
so appealing to me is that they ALL work !

[Nancy R.]

Renata - Your quilt is beautiful! Stabilizing your quilt with SID could be helpful, but it's not necessary. Like Lois, for this quilt I wouldn't SID in a way that leaves it in the final quilt because I would also want to de-emphasize the individual blocks, but that's an esthetic choice. It will be nice either way. I personally don't stabilize the quilt with water soluable thread before quilting because I've found the pinning to be sufficient to stabilize things, but that's a personal choice. I don't like to "waste" the thread or spend the extra time. (Laziness and cheapness, my two most endearing qualities! Okay, I have other equally endearing qualities....)

Nancy

[Renata L.]

Thank you, Marilyn and Nancy! Marilyn, you are so right that the best part of this random pineapple is that they all work! What I like is that you can get all sorts of effects out of them, some by surprise and some by planning as was the case with Lois' beautiful pineapple quilt! Nancy, I'm with you on the cheapness and laziness :lol: :lol: :lol: but I also found that pins really don't get in the way that much for me. And if the pins really bothered me, I think I would hand baste with a big Z pattern (don't know what you really call it) that my mom used to use to hand-baste interfacing to jackets as you would do for fine men's tailoring (Rosemary, bail me out! do you know what I'm referring to? :roll: ).

[Rita C.]

Renata, your quilt is beautiful. Reminds me of a garden of roses. It is just great to see the different effects everybody's fabric choices have on this idea. I stitched in the ditch around my squares to stabilize but that's because I don't feel confident about fmq without that - it's a psychological thing for me, means that I am only working on an 8 1/2" square at a time. I did not remove the sid afterwards as it was done with monopoly which can't be seen from the front anyway. And the designs that I chose were all within the blocks anyway. If you are planning on doing an all over design then you don't need to sid first. I used 505 basting spray on all my quilts and it worked really well. you do need to spray liberally to make sure you don't get any rippling.

I know what you mean about the Z stithing - Sharon Shambers uses that method and it does work really well in keeping the whole thing stable - but I don't know what it's called.

[Renata L.]

Thank you, Rita! A garden of roses... I like that, especially since there are cats and spider webs and butterflies and frogs peeking out here and there from the ugly novelty fabrics I threw in there and they don't look that ugly anymore! The use of Monopoly is a great idea, because, now that I think about it, when I put the blocks together there was a lot of bias pulling and tugging all around and I had to be really careful when I pressed the seams. So for a beginner like me, your idea of Monopoly and Lois' idea of vanishing thread might not be a bad idea after all, even though, like Nancy, I don't like extra work, if I can help it.

I still am not sure what design I'm going to put on there. Any ideas out there? The one-inch border will probably mimick the center colors and I intend to put a black border with white stars as the 4.5-inch border (unless I change my mind this morning before cutting :lol: )

[Nancy R.]

Hi Renata - If you decide to do an all-over pattern in the center or across the entire quilt, I think you should use the water soluable thread for the SID since, even if you can't see the thread, the stitching will change the texture of the quilt and will be visible in that way. If you decide to do block-by-block quilting, then leaving the SID can add to the look. If you want to play on the idea of a rose garden, there are easy FMQ roses that you could use. Hopefully someone can point you to something online to show you, but you can do something like a swirl for the center and then you just build the petals by going around the swirl with C shapes. If nobody can give you pictures today, then I can look around tonight. Can't take the time now since I'm just taking a quick break from work to see what's going on here.

Nancy

[Renata L.]

Nancy, I love the idea of the swirl in the middle of a block so I'll start looking but I need so much practice even in all-over that I just haven't decided where to focus yet. I'm sure that with a few general suggestions, like the one you just gave me, I'll be able to focus in on what I will do in the end. Thanks!!!

[Rita C.]

Here's one from Leah Day, Renata.

http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.i...-of-roses.html

[Lois B.]

Just a note. Stabilizing with water soluble thread does add an extra step but I love FMQing without having to stop and deal with removing pins. Just a preference.

[Renata L.]

Thank you both, Rita and Lois! I do like the rose pattern in Leah Day... it reminds me of an Asian artistic rendition of clouds a bit too...

[Renata L.]

Alternatively the Rennie Mackintosh rose design adjusts well to continuous line quilting http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ren...10&bih=530

[Renata L.]

Wow, Rosemary... those are some incredible design ideas be it in stencil or the photos to draw from on google images...

[Renata L.]

Here is my take on the style - done in knotting rather than quilting, but you get the idea, start on the outside of the circle and work your way in.

[Nancy R.]

Hi Renata - I needed a little break from some complicated stuff I'm working on, so decided to do a quick web search for something like the roses I'm thinking of. Found something right away! Here's what I was thinking about:

The ones I've done had more of a swirl in the middle, but I really like these. And they really are easy to do. The biggest thing to be careful of is to leave enough room for the whole flower before you make the center. Then just go into the middle and swirl around and then move around the outside making the pedals. Then just wander around filling space, adding some leaves, until you get to a point where you want to make another rose. It's really a lot of fun! And you have the added insurance that your background is really busy so, unless you choose some incredibly thick and bright thread, the quilting won't be seen until you get up close and will be mostly texture. The perfect place to practice!

I'll be excited to see what you finally decide and how the quilt turns out! I know it will be beautiful!!

Nancy

[Margo C.]

I like that all-over design, but if you are more comfortable working in small areas instead of a design over the entire quilt top, maybe something like this would work.
SID between all the blocks with MonoPoly to stabilize the quilt, then quilt a free-form funky flower in each block.
I would just start in the middle with the swirl then four petal shapes, then fill out to the corners with a bracket/leafy shape using just one continuous line for each block.
Very free-form and organic and forgiving!