Finished French Braid Quilt

Well my best laid plans to machine quilt each day was interrupted by life just getting in the way as it does. It was in a good way though. This week I am spending getting my work ready for my classes which start back on Monday. The French Braid quilt needed to be layered and quilted but I have been putting that off as I was keen to free motion quilt it. That was one reason for all the practicing I have been doing. Although I am happy with FMQ I really needed to add to my repertoire. I still need to practice some more - lots more.

Whilst I was thinking about what to stitch on the quilt I got all the housework, washing, ironing done. It was good thinking time and yesterday I finally started the quilting.

Here it is being quilted. The easy option, apart from sending it off to Dianne in Lochearnhead to be quilted which is what I do with my larger quilts, would have been to quilt it using straight stitches or in the ditch. However I wanted to free motion quilt it and so I set about doing that yesterday. I had nothing to lose really and although it's not brilliant it is fine.

The other thing I tried which I haven't done before on a quilt this size is to baste it with 505 spray. Normally I either pin or thread baste and only use 505 for small quilts like my journal quilts. It was fine though and the quilt sandwich never moved which was what I feared.

This morning I squared it up and added the binding. One class sample finished!


A number of people have asked about the Nepal quilt design.
I have added it to my EQ projects on this blog. You can download EQ6 HERE and EQ5 HERE.