Tiger Tracks
September 2020
I enjoy experimenting with different quilt techniques and methods, and wanted to try doing an attic window quilt. When I started looking around to purchase a panel, this gorgeous creature caught my eye! However, when he got home and onto my design wall, it quickly became apparent that 1) he was too beautiful to cut up and 2) he would be alarmingly close to my attic window, if I had an attic window 🙂 Instead, I chose to use simple borders and let him be the star of this show.
For the quilting, I stitched around some of the key elements in the tiger panel, using seven different colored threads so that they blended well. While there were a lot of threads to knot and bury, the final effect was well worth the effort. For the borders, I quilted big tiger paws all around. I pieced the back (shown below), which allowed me to use standard 44″ wide fabric.
The majority of quilts I make are quankets – fleece backed tops that I tie – so I feel I’m still a bit of a newbie when it comes to the traditional method of sandwiching the top, batting and fabric back. My foray into traditional quilting began with the QAYG method (quilt as you go), quilting each individual block and then joining them. I then progressed to doing bigger quilted sections, keeping a section not much wider than 20″ since I quilt on a standard sewing machine. However, this quilt didn’t lend itself well to the QAYG method, so I quilted at the full size which is roughly 54″x60″. I hear other quilters comment how their shoulders get sore after quilting a bigger quilt on a standard sewing machine, and I certainly learned firsthand what they are talking about! I rigged up some overhead clamps to hold much of the quilt’s mass off of the sewing table, to reduce the amount of drag, which helped a lot. But, I still need to come up with a better solution for reducing the drag across the very front edge of my sewing cabinet where I’m sitting.
Love Hugs 