Flow Quilting

I have been playing around with flow quilting these past few days.

I have previously called this type of quilting 'graffiti quilting', but have since switched to using the term 'flow quilting' because 'graffiti quilting' was coined by Karlee Porter, who has a very distinctive style completely unlike my own. Cristina Cameli calls it 'wild quilting' and I think Angela Walters calls it 'improv quilting', so there's really no set name for it. I like flow quilting, though, because it feels like the designs just flow together.

Whatever you call it, quilting like this is fun!

I'm quilting the mini quilt I made with the denim epp flowers I made for one of my Denim Days posts and my machine doesn't really like quilting close to the denim. I'm guessing it's because the denim is raised off the background fabric so much and the presser foot is half-on the denim and half-off it when I'm close to it. I started out by outlining the middle flower and then flow quilted my way over to the one on the left. I quilted around that one and then tried doing pebbles around it, but that's when my machine started making funny noises and breaking the thread. So, after debating what to do for a while, I ripped out everything close to the flowers so that I can echo quilt around them. You can see where I ripped out stitches between the two flowers in this picture.

Echoing around the flowers gives me a little space so that my presser foot isn't on top of the denim as I'm flow quilting and that seems to be working much better. As a bonus, I really like that edge of white between the flower and the flow quilting!

Last night I added some back-and-forth lines in one section and I really like how that makes the motifs seem to float above the background. I'll be using more of those.

I also really like these long swirls. They're quite a bit bigger than everything else I've quilted so far, so I want to scatter them around to make the quilting look balanced.

We're on our Easter break this week, so there's no school and no babysitting for me. I'm hoping to have a lot of time for quilting before regular routine starts up again on Monday.

I'll be linking up with Let's Bee Social and NTT this week.

Not Innocent

Devotion for the Week...

We had a lovely communion service at our church Friday morning to mark Good Friday. During the service our pastor read from Matthew 27, starting at verse 11. As he read, one part really caught my attention.

Jesus stands before Pilate, who sees no reason to keep him prisoner, but the crowd is demanding that Pilate release a notorious criminal rather than Jesus. What caught my attention was this one verse:

"When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!” "(Matthew 27:24).

"I am innocent of this man's blood," Pilate claimed. Well, that's not true, is it? If we look only at the events that were happening, Pilate claimed he was innocent because the crowd demanded Jesus' death. Really, though, Pilate chose to give in to those demands. He chose to allow an innocent man to be crucified merely to satisfy the demands of a mob and prevent "an uproar". A ceremonial washing of his hands could not wash away his guilt.

But beyond the events of the story, Pilate cannot claim to be innocent of Jesus' blood. None of us can. The simple truth is that every person ever born, except Jesus Himself, is guilty of sin.  "The Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one" (Psalm 14:2,3). All have turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.

None of us can claim to have never done wrong. No matter how much we try to be good people, there are still times when we think or do things that are wrong. Pilate didn't understand what was really happening in Jerusalem that day. He thought he could claim innocence because the crowd was demanding Jesus' death. Really, though, he was just as guilty as the religious leaders who were inciting the crowd to hate Jesus. And we are just as guilty as all of them. Jesus died for all the sins of everyone, everywhere, which means we are all guilty.

The good news is that the story doesn't leave us stuck at guilty. Jesus died because of our sins, yes, but that's not the end. Adam's sin brought sin to all of mankind and made all of us sinners. There was no escaping that death sentence...until Jesus. We are all guilty of causing His death, and yet His death is what gives us forgiveness. "For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous" (Romans 5:19). When we believe that Jesus died for us, our sins are forgiven and our relationship with God is restored.

Only when we acknowledge our guilt can we accept Jesus as Savior. And only when we accept Jesus as Savior can our guilt be removed.             

Stitching Path

When I posted about my Denim Log Cabin placemats I had 8 tops pieced, but only two of them were quilted and bound. I finally got the rest of them quilted, and last weekend I finished binding them. This stack of placemats makes me so happy!

I quilted them using the swirl hook design, which I learned from Angela Walters' video tutorial. For the first few placemats, I quilted it randomly, but then as I went along I realized that I could quilt it in a spiral so I did that for two. I couldn't believe the difference in the look of the finished quilting!

Here is one quilted randomly...

 ...and one quilted in a spiral.

See how when I quilted in a spiral the motifs end up looking like they're in rows? I also find they ended up more uniform in size and all facing the same direction.

Personally, I like the random look better, but quilting in a spiral was certainly easier. When quilting random I had more of a tendency to quilt myself into predicaments, mostly because I left spaces between the motifs that were either awkward to get into or that I couldn't get into at all. Following a spiral path eliminated those problems because I was just building on the last row quilted.

Have you ever tried quilting the same design in different paths? Did you find it made a difference in the look of the finished quilting?


I'll be linking up with Let's Bee Social, NTT, TGIFF, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop and Finish it up Friday.