The countdown has started...

Right now, so my focus is on getting Sweetling's college quilt done before she flies off to school.

I'm starting to feel the time crunch.

It's not just about getting it done, it's about getting it done exactly the way she wants it.

The meandering circles on the blue quilt didn't give the result she wants. 

We discussed individual circles in each fabric piece. She didn't think that would work either.

We put Press n Seal over a block and tried filling in the pieces with 2 or 3 circles. However, I told her that my control over maneuvering the fabric isn't consistent yet and my circles might be ovals.  She informed me that ovals will not be acceptable. 😆.

After more discussion, and explaining that the more dense the quilting means less loft from the batting.  It's the fluffiness that's most important to her.

We concluded that the traditional 1/4" stitch away from the seam would do the trick.

Alright! I'll stitch the baby girl quilt as close to that effect as I can and see if that gets the final approval from her.

First, I gotta make sure the thread tension is going to be ok with this high-loft batting.

I used an extra block and the left over batting and stitched some designs I thought I might do on the baby girl quilt.  

I really love it. And the tension was just fine.

I was ready to move onto the baby girl quilt!

The closest quilting technique on this quilt would be to "stitch in the ditch" to best show Sweets how her quilt will look

I went at snail's pace to keep the stitching close to the seam.

And it's really not bad for stitching without a stitch regulator.  ( On a side note - probably stitching on the domestic machine with a walking foot would have worked better for this, but it's all about the practice!)

Which, jumping the ditch shows I can use plenty of practice here.

I got about 4/5ths of the stitch-in-the-ditch quilting done today.  Sweets really likes the results.  There's a lot of thread ends to bury because it's a lot of starts and stops.  I don't mind.  But I have decided I'm not going to fill in the baby girl quilt with more quilting.  I don't have the time. I like to but I really need to get back to stitching on Sweetling's quilt! 

The count down has started, 

just 31 days until she's on the plane to NYC!!

(I'll have to remember the binding alone will probably take 3 days!)