Finally, the quilting is done!

I started this quilt in 2009 and the top has been done since 2010 and I was practicing FMQ just to finish this quilt.   This quilt is big too at about 85" square so doing this all on the home machine really wasn't too bad.  I have a large collection of civil war prints and have made several different quilts with it.  Here is the the full picture of the quilt on the floor.  With the weather we have been having it has been hard to get photos outside.

In the snowball blocks I quilted circle feathers.  Those scared me the most as I am lazy and don't like to mark but could not do them freehand do I had a stencil and I used the blue Dritz pen and drew them in.  There were 24 of those blocks!  Yikes!  I had 8 of them left on a Sunday and the feather borders and that took me all day!  I started at 7:30 am and finally finished at 4 pm.  I took a couple of breaks but that was a lot Free Motion!

Each of the pieced blocks were all quilted differently as well but used the same thread through out the whole quilt except for the border I used brown and the one pieced border it is red I used red thread.  I wanted the quilting to blend.  Some of them I thought they would stick out but when you look at it in a whole you can not see it.  I used Aurfil thread 50wt on all  of it.  I love that thread!

I liked the corners - thought those turned out pretty.  The brown borders had feathers that I did freehand and I love doing those.  I was happy on how they turned out.  I just thought it was really hard to see the quilting from the front so the picture of the feathers is from the back.

You can see some of the quilting on this one.  A couple of things that I learned along the way.

You really can't see your mistakes once you are done.  When you are quilting it and your nose is 4 inches from the quilt, I see every stitch that I don't like.  You wash it and hold it up or even in your lap I have no idea where they are.

I had read somewhere to slow down the speed of your machine.  So I did that.  I find that is really helpful.  I had less of those pulls when I started and stopped the machine.  I felt I had a lot more control.

I really like Free Motioning in one area and then moving on opposed to an all over.  I like knowing I won't get stuck in a corner or cross over a line when I shouldn't.

I also liked breaking it up into sections and ticking each one off.  Sunday was the exception, normally, I don't work on FMQ for more than a few hours.  I gave myself a self imposed deadline so it was a lot at the end but it did get done!

It is done and washed and am really glad, it turned out very snuggly.  My husband loves it.  He is definitely not a bright, modern kinda of guy.  So this is perfect for him and looks great on the brown leather recliner that he claims as his own.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hope you get some sewing time! Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts and Whoo Whoo Fridays!

This is a finish from the Q1 Finish Along and linking up to She Can Quilt.