I’ve been pretty busy in my sewing room this week, just not with things ready to share, however I have started quilting my All the Trimmings quilt. This was a free QAL from the Fat Quarter Shop, it just took a layer cake and a bit of plain fabric. As I happened to have a Christmas layer cake I decided to make this little Christmas quilt.

I finished the top a few weeks ago, I was debating adding a scrappy border as I have quite a few squares left from the layer cake, however when I tried it with a few scraps on my design wall it just didn’t work. I decided to back it in the same plain as the front and then maybe use a scrappy binding…

I finally started quilting it this week, I sandwiched it with 505 spray which I find holds everything together nicely without gunking the needle up. I started in the middle with the garland of ribbon. I decided to do a mixture of in the ditch quilting and free motion quilting so I’ve gone round the edge of the bows and then stitched a meander to fill it in. The connecting tails are then quilted with a long zigzag line…

Having quilted the ribbon row with red thread on top and blue underneath it seemed a good idea to start the red stocking above. Again I quilted in the ditch first, I can’t say I’m getting any better at this, it always seems a lot more tricky than it should! For the free motion bit I decided to play a bit of dot to dot on the cuff, stitching two rows of zigzag across the top. For the main stocking I’ve quilted holly leaves, they’re not perfect but I’m pretty happy with how they’ve come out. I think I might use an off white thread for the two lighter stockings though, not quite so obvious as red or navy blue!

As the quilting doesn’t show up much on those photos, here’s the back view. It’s not a brilliant photo either as it’s artificial lighting so the backing is much lighter than in reality but you get the gist!..

I’m trying to take it steady with this quilt as it’s the first quilt I’ve machine quilted since my neck operation, little by little and I’ll get there.