Here's one from Leah Day, Renata.

http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.ie/2010/07/day-202-bed-of-roses.html

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!!!

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

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 )

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.

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 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? ).

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...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 !

Thanks, Lois! Have fun with quilting yours too--it is lovely (I've already made a mental note for the black and white leafy fabric you used--I really like that!) and welcome back home!

loise98 wrote:
What a great idea

I love your pineapple quilt. I plan to stablize mind using the dual feed on my machine and water soluble thread. That's because I don't want to emphasize where one block stops and the next one starts. That's not a rule that is just my design choice for this quilt. Have fun with the quilting. I have to be statisfied to do little things like pin cushions and other small projects for now. I have too much summer going on. Just got home to Pennsylvania from visiting my daughter in Nevada. Smelled smoke from fires when I landed for a plane change in Salt Lake City, Utah. Flew over Colorado north of Denver but could see nothing. There were clouds there. I was hoping that meant rain. I don't think that happened but I was praying for it. Lois

I took a break from my Sedona Star BOM this past week and went back to the pineapple quilt I had started but set aside to catch up on Sedona Star... I did not think too much about the imperfections in putting the pieces together--I just wanted to knock it out and have fun, and I did! So tomorrow I'll cut the borders and get it ready for quilting. I learned a lot in the process. For starters, I think the centers would stand out better if I chose the first set of surrounding fabrics in a consistently darker tone than the center. But most importantly, I discovered that some colors I never even thought about really looked good together--like grey and cheddar! I also discovered that I really like orange, pink and yellow in the same fabric.

Question: is it a good idea to stabilize the quilt by stitching in the ditch of the eight-inch squares before doing the FMQ or does it not matter?

Here's my quilt:



Yes, something got in the way of the picture on the left bottom corner, but I decided not to retake the photo...

Thanks so much everyone. I loved doing it and am eager to do another one. You can do it completely randomly or pick combinations of choice for each block. I did the latter because the tecknique provided opportunity to play with my trash combined with stash in ways I never did before. There was a new combination of colors, tectures and patterns with each block. The green centers and black with its regular spots in the block provided great continuity for play. In the past, that kind of variety of choice involved starting a new project. I am eager to finish this one and use the tecknique to play with color texture and pattern in still another way.

Love both of your quilts, when my grandaughter stays with us in December this year for a month we are going to make one, I have the book and tool all ready to go, will have to show her yours as inspiration.