FINALLY having finished the 'melon feather' quilting, I was ready to move on to the arc design. Once again, I took the easy road and totally copied the quilting that is on Gail Kessler's quilt in the Double Wedding Ring class. Her longarmer added a circle/wave design that quilts the arcs without getting too fussy because of the busy fabrics. I traced the shape on a printout of the quilt until I got the motion down. Each circle shape has a teardrop at the end and they alternate up and down as you move along the arc. (I broke concentration a couple times and messed up the order but didn't bother to pick them out!)
This is a fairly easy design to quilt and goes much faster than the feathers. I contemplated trying to do all the concave arcs one way and then turning the quilt and doing the other convex ones but it got too cumbersome and confusing so I just quilt them as they come. Whether or not the design is mirror imaged is of no concern to me and I don't think it will matter once the quilt is done. It's difficult to even see the quilting on the top but I think those teardrops will add a nice puff of texture once the quilt is washed.
I'm not being too particular or rigid about the circle shapes and my travel stitching is loose and fluid with some overlapping, which I'm okay with. I think it looks great on the back and I was quite surprised how uniform my waves actually are! I think there are 194 arcs to do so it is taking a bit of time to get through them. Here are some pictures of the arc quilting and you can see how it is coming together with the feathers for some nice, balanced density.
Angie what a nice job. You should be very proud of yourself. A lot of work but worth it. Quite an accomplishment.
Posted by: Diane Surage | November 13, 2014 at 07:23 AM
That is looking so nice!
Posted by: Maureen | November 14, 2014 at 11:02 PM