But almost from the moment Chris and Andrea opened their gift, Annette scooped it up and snuggled in it and I was almost certain she was never going to let it go. After making sure everyone understood this quilt was made esp. for Chris and Andrea, I knew I was gonna need to make another Bronco quilt.
but I didn't get to it immediately. Other life events came and went. I didn't get started on it until Sept., when my niece Cristy and Andrea reminded me how much Annette loved the quilt. At first I was going to use the same design I had made for Chris and Andrea. But when I went to cut the fabric, I couldn't do it. I guess it was on my heart that they are at a new beginning, having just gotten engaged a few months ago and purchasing their first home... it meant this quilt had to be theirs from the very beginning. And so i started from scratch... with graph paper and pencil....
i got the 30" center planned but then I was stuck and it stayed on the design wall for a bit. 
I needed to add more length than width. I thought about more half-square triangles or some kind of pieced blocks, but it started feeling too busy. And so borders seemed the right thing to do.
Then it started coming together.
I love that satisfied feeling when a quilt practically makes itself. When all the pieces seem to fall together. :)
And then came the quilting... phew... it's a whole different problem... figuring out what kind of quilting design is going to enhance the piecing or fabric...
But the fun part of getting to this step is that I knew I would be doing at least some of the quilting on the longarm machine at the Bernina quilt shop in Jackson, MS. ohhhh boy, have i fallen head over heals for the new Bernina Q20 sit down longarm. I love the table that comes with the machine, it has extention leaves! and the stitch regulator is what I long for most.
But from this next photo, you can see i need more practice with free motion quilting to smooth out my lines. From pinterest i found a design for free-motion footballs. (Except later my Heart informed me that professional footballs don't have the stripes... oh well, i'll know for next time.)
I ran into a bit of a snag. After 3 hrs of renting the long-arm, i had only half of the quilting done! I had to continue the quilting at home on my domestic sewing machine... that's ok, I can do this. My stitches won't be consistant but I can live with that...
Not bad! I'm impressed, it looks beautiful on the front side!...
... but there's not supposed to be orange thread showing on the navy blue backside :(. I had to pick it all out.
practice swatch... with adjusted tension... but the navy blue thread is poking to the front side...
nope, I didn't care for this either...
only solution I was satisfied with was changing the bobbin thread on the backside to orange. I was very pleased.
the navy blue is quilting with the long-arm. Orange and white is on my home sewing machine.
The part i couldn't document with pictures is the quilting in the navy border on the front side. I "wrote" football terms like "touchdown", "football", "punt", "interception"... and on the bottom I wrote "Desmond and Annette". (I owe a huge "Thank you!!" to a quilt guildmate, Terry, for encouraging me to "write" with the machine. it turned out very cool.)
I attached a wider 1" binding rather than the usual tidy 1/2" one. I love how it crinkled with the quilt.
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| Last but not least, the label was added. I had so much fun making this quilt.I learned a lot in the process. I am loving that after almost 30 years of quilting I am still learning new things <3 |
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