As I wrote previously, I’ve finally finished the appliqué on a Baltimore Album, and it’s ready to quilt. Half of the quilting design will be small circles or bubbles, whichever you call them, around the appliqué and embroidery. For the past two weeks, I’ve been practicing on a vintage Dresden Plate I purchased for the purpose of longarm practice.
There was much excess fullness in the blocks, which made this a good quilt to practice circles on because they would take up the excess fabric. The blocks are quite large at nearly 14″ square, which meant I would get a lot of practice. That certainly proved to be true. Rather than use a neutral thread to match the block background, I chose pink so I could see what I was doing. I learned a lot about the best arm position and speed for doing small, tight circles and began developing muscle memory. I also found stitching “pigtails” on some circles made the movement from one to another smoother. The quilting in the first block is rather rough, while the final block is much improved. However, I’m not sure I’m where I would like to be to get started on my Album quilt. I’m thinking of doing another smaller piece to gain more confidence in my execution.
