Celtic Solstice - it's a finish!!

I put the pedal to the metal and quilted Celtic Solstice using a variegated blue, yellow, and green thread from Sulky. I quilted it using an all over loop de loop on my regular sewing machine.

Thanks to an article in Quilty magazine by Kelly Biscopink, I tried free motion quilting with the feed dogs UP! Kelly has a Baby Lock that is the sister to my Brother sewing machine. She mentioned that her tension was better with the feed dogs up. So I gave it a try - the verdict is in - my tension was better too! I'm not saying it was perfect, but it was a lot better than my prior free motion attempts with the feed dogs down. I say, if you have a Baby Lock or Brother machine, give it a try.

As soon as the quilting was done, I got busy sewing on the binding. I used a fabric I consider to be an "ugly" fabric as binding. It had large irises, but the colors were perfect - blue, green, yellow, and orange.

I finished the binding late last night and worked on the label today. I used the same variegated thread and the alphabet stitches on my sewing machine to make the label.

 

The purple dots you see in the picture above are from the air soluble marking pen I used.  I made a practice label with scrap fabric and black thread, then I figured out the spacing and marked even lines and starting points so I could get every line just right.  I've never made a label like this before, but I would definitely do it again.

I had sew much fun doing my first ever Bonnie mystery quilt, I know this won't be my last!  Bonnie gave directions for two sizes, the small one had 49 blocks.  I made 25 blocks.


Celtic Solstice will be a lap quilt for me to use when I sit in my recliner.

Head over to Bonnie's blog and see all the other quilts - in progress and finished.