Same Goal-Different Views

My quilt group is a wonderful bunch of ladies.  Lots of camaraderie and creativity.  Some really pretty quilts, and some not so beautiful (more on that in the next post).  And there are a lot of different ways that we approach quilting.  KC, who leads our group (though she denies that she is the leader, she really is) wants to keep the quilts simple so that we can make as many as possible to give away.  A very reasonable approach for sure.  She has made some very lovely quilts that are simple in design and quilting.  The UFO's I work on from start to finish tend to have smaller pieces and more detailed quilting than KC would like, but I can't help following the design to where it takes me.  For me it is not just a giving of the quilt itself, but also investing time and creativity to make it something special to receive. Thankfully I am not the only one that has this tendency, and we do get enough quilts made that KC is (mostly) willing to bear with those of us who favor the detail.

Since I have started coming to the group, I have been able to encourage the ladies to try their hand at machine quilting.  While most have become comfortable with quilting in the ditch, if they want any "fancy work" done, they usually ask me to do it.  This is just fine with me since I love working with free-motion quilting, though I hope in time they will want to play with designs more.  This week I was asked to do some fill quilting on one of our UFO's.  It was fun to do and I am pleased with the results.

Flags a-Flying

Fill quilting with seam ripper for scale

The quilt is two rows of pre-printed flag panels, with strips added in between to get it to throw size.  The fill quilting I did is in the wide red strip in the middle.  It is very passable for one of our patriotic quilts (not my favorites).  Mr. J and I continue to get to know one another, and this project went pretty smoothly.  I foresee happy quilting times ahead.