Friday, July 1, 2011

Susan Moore's Drunkards Path


I LOVE this Drunkards Path quilt! Susan made it for her husband Paul's birthday and needed it by April 26. I got it out just in the nick of time....


As I was working on it, I just kept thinking about how I wished it was mine! If I owned this quilt, I could use it as part of my trunk show as a terrific example of both marked and freehand quilting in the same quilt. But curved piecing isn't my idea of a good time -- does anyone want to piece one of these for me? Didn't think so....


I used this leaf stencil as the inspiration for the quilting in the dark areas; of course it didn't fit, so I marked some of it with a chalk pouncer, the Ultimate Pounce Pad, and then stitched the rest in the same leafy style. The Ultimate Pounce Pad is a very cool marking tool -- you just swipe it across the stencil to do your marking. It doesn't smear and, if you make a mistake or don't want to wash the quilt, you can remove it with an iron. If you click the link, you can read all about it.


A variegated rayon thread, Sulky #2243, was used for the leaf quilting; Mettler 100% cotton silk finish #731 was in the bobbin.

















I just sort of made the leaves fit within the space provided, letting some spill over into the border area.




The thread used for the feather quilting in the light areas was also a Sulky rayon, #1149 Deep Ecru. I didn't mark any of the feathers, just "let 'er rip"!


My goal was to have the feathers go over and under as they met at the intersections for a braided effect.












Small feathers for each of the four corners of the quilt were also stitched in the ecru thread.










The border stencil is a 4-1/2" wide stencil from The Stencil Company, #SCO-245-4.5. Since it was marked on both light and dark fabrics, I used a blue water soluble marker in the light areas and the Ultimate Pounce Pad in the dark.


The thread for the border was the variegated Sulky used for the leaves.













And a picture of the border after the stitching was complete.


This was a very fun project that challenged my skills and really made me think -- love that!


Next post -- some things that I have purchased lately to make my machine quilting life easier!

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