QUILTING THE WISTERIA LANE

 Wisteria Lane is a project I have been working on for years.  It has had many starts and stops for the last 7 years.  Once the project was actually completed all it needed was quilting.  Now there is where things got really iffy for me.

This was the beginning of my journey with this piece.  I posted this on my blog in July 2015.

By January 2019 I had only gotten to the point of sewing down the edges of the brick mortar and the branch vines.

In June of 2020 I actually began to get wisteria blossoms on.

I picked up the pace and by August 2020 I had leaves and about half the appliqués on.  

I worked now and again and this was my progress in December 2021.

And by January this year I had finally finished the appliqués.

Now the issue was this has to be quilted.  That means every single one of those leaves, blossoms and some of the vines under the blossoms need to be individually quilted.  Free Motion is not my friend, I just don't get it.  I belong to Chat and Sew, a quilt group that meets monthly and asked for advice.  I was encouraged by one of the ladies.  She said if I can do machine appliqué, as nicely as she believes I do, that I can quilt this piece and to get busy before I loose my nerve and never finish it.  Long arm service was out of the question, these ladies were not going to let me get away with that. 

First things first, thread.  Between a trip into my thread stash and a quick trip to JoAnn's There is not an awful lot of thread colors required.  

I started from the top and began with the leaves.  They seemed the easiest to start.  I am using my Bernina 750 with a stitch length of 1.75.  Things are going well.  I pull the top thread ends to the back and bury them in the batting.  I used a very thin 80/20 batting, and a cotton backing.  The appliqués and red background are batiks.  

Nest step the vines and branches.  So far so good.  However, I did find I had to reduce my tension and lower my stitch length to 1.60.

There was a bit of a learning curve, as I proceeded onto smaller appliqués.  

At this point the only way forward was to tackle the blossoms.  Oh yes, I can do this.  It is going to take a while, but at this point there is no looking back.  I am dedicating to at least each day, if I am able to get into the sewing room, and work a bit on this.

With success on the lavender blossoms I am on to the blue ones.  I will be using two colored threads on this one.  At this point it is just to continue down the piece and eventually get all the appliqués done and then work on the red background.  

DESIGN WALL MONDAY

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