Close Quilting

The Shirt Stripe Boxes quilt came off the machine and is ready for binding just as soon as my regular workhorse machine gets back from having its much-needed maintenance at the shop.  I love the close-set quilting on this; together with the extra-smooth shirting fabrics, it gives the quilt a crisp, modern, beach house-like feel.

I used a light blue polyester thread (usually it's all cotton for me, but this turned out well).  You can see the pattern best on the dark squares.

The sheen of the poly thread makes an interesting effect even on the back.  The closeness of the quilting does make the overall quilt a bit flatter and stiffer, but it works here.

I've sorted my scraps of fabric into three tubs.  Left to right they are "Tinies", strips, and "Vintage-y".  This is in addition to the fat quarters that are more neatly organized in my cupboard.  I thought I would cut out strips from these three bins for the Framed In Quilt featured recently on Moda Bake Shop.  My recipe is "blue" and the background will be some white I had leftover from a large quilt backing.

Anything with blue in it will qualify, regardless of variations in fabric style and weight.  Now I just want to get my machine back so I can start piecing.  There are still many quilts' worth of scraps, and I haven't even dug into my fat quarters.