It Helps To Know What You're Looking At

I'm in the finishing stages of both Nantucket and Country Charmer so my mind has been skipping ahead to the next project. Jane, you will be happy to know that I think I'm finally ready to tackle the machine quilting on your Pumpkin Patch at Midnight, and you can thank Paulette at Sweet P for that. A short while ago she mentioned finding a 'stitch in the ditch' foot for her Janome and I thought that any little bit of help I could get with my machine quilting would be a bonus, so I was all set to buy one.

Just before bolting out the door I thought maybe I should check and see if maybe it was one of the feet that came with my machine, since it is a quilting model. So, I dumped out this little bag of goodies that had been stashed away, and...

...there it was! Bonus! See the little black guide that drops down into the centre of the foot? That sits in your seam as you sew, ensuring accuracy, and given my paranoia about messing this up it is a welcome little tool. There are lots of other uses for it too, if you are interested (it's often called and edge foot). Guess it would help if I spent a little more timing exploring the details of the toys that came with my machine.

All along I've been thinking that I would free motion quilt this piece but I have never done any before and just have not been comfortable testing out my skills on this piece. Then recently I had a brainwave - maybe I could make the spider web quilting pattern using my walking foot.

I whipped out a little scrap with some batting, drew up a loose web, and in no time had a free form spider web that I was very happy with. Eureka! The blocks are not precise matches so the webs will be a little free form too, and I want to stitch in the ditch the spines of the webs, so all the stars suddenly seem to be aligning....M