Last month I worked on a show piece, more apply said, I struggled through a show piece.  It was finished, it is off to HMQS, but the difficulties linger in my mind.  I knew I needed to spend more time working at that level of quilting.  More time means scheduling more time, not just saying I need to take some time to do…..  Does this sound familiar?  I scheduled the time and came up with the parameters.  Here is the plan:

One week each month just for my projects, the space is already blocked out on my calender for the next 4 months.  One whole cloth design each month, 9 by the end of the year.  Each project will be drafted out 18″ square, something I can quilt in a day.  Use only nice cotton sateen’s, try the Radiance eventually.  Those are the basic rules and now that it is written for all the world to see I am going to stick with it!

I am a paper and pencil kind of gal so I start with a square, marked in centers and quarters and then start dividing up the space.

I used cotton sateen, wool and cotton batt, bottom line thread.  Subsequent pictures show the process.

Basic scribbles including notes about arc sizes and distances where I need to mark.

Marking the quilt using pattern weights to hold my little temples in place.  I freehand draw any motifs then fine tune the ones I like to make a template.

Deciding on fills

Quilt top marked and ready to go:

Detail shot of the quilting.

This was a very enjoyable process.  It took lots of time to come up with the design but only about a day to quilt it.  I will look forward to the next one.