There is progress in the world...

My world, at least, if not the world at large. But let's not go there. The two pillow tops for my boys are complete (apart from, in the case of the monster one, a teensy-weensy bit of hand embroidery of details - procrastinate, procrastinate). And the fabric and zippers for the backs are purchased. I'm going to do invisible zips. In the vain hope that this will prevent (or at least discourage?) little hands from prying. Am I kidding myself? Probably.


It was a funny experience with these projects, quilting-wise. With the beep-beep one, I decided to go with the swirly quilting, because, well, I've had a bit of practice recently. The whole time I was doing this, I kept thinking, it's not working, it's not working, it looks terrible. But weirdly, it doesn't. In fact, it looks pretty damn good, even if I do say so myself! But for some reason I can't put my finger on, I just didn't feel comfortable with it, not in the way I did with Willow. Anyway, it's done, and it looks good, so let's just move on, shall we?


With the monster one, I thought I'd try something a bit different, given that the three panels seem to lend themselves to something a bit different! So, a little stippling in the yellow section, and in the main top section, some pebbly quilting. My first time trying this and I have to say I'm really happy with it. This went so fast - particularly in comparison to the swirly quilting, which takes f.o.r.e.v.e.r. And it has a slightly, errrr, organic feel to it. If you look closely you'd see what I mean - kinda messy, but it works! I love the texture to it, and I think it really suits the monsters.

I'd love to know - what kind of free-motion quilting backgrounds do you like to do (or if you're not into the doing, do you have any favourites you like to see?)

Speaking of the doing, I've had a few people contact me asking for tips on the swirly quilting. I'm planning to put together a little tutorial on this in the near future - stay tuned!