Happy Independence Day!!

Hope everyone has a safe and wonderful Independence Day.  The weather here in the Midwest is starting to feel just  little bit like the fourth of July!!  Sunny and in the upper 70s.

  

I was able to get up early enough and get a little quilting done.  I'm working on a QOV - now that's appropriate right? :) Someone suggested I do a video for how I mark things and get them quilted.  Well that's not gonna happen.  But I did take some extra pictures, so you can see how I mark things, tools I use and what I mark.  Hopefully this will benefit someone!  On this particular quilt, I have a center motif for the red and blue patterns, and background feathers for the background.  I start by marking the center of the block with a chalk pencil.  

I then place the stencil using the center mark

The stencil has a rough side and a smooth side.  I place the stencil rough side up, then rub (not pounce) my pouncer across the stencil.  I got this new pink chalk that just rubs off with a paper towel ( I use a small scrap of batting and it works like a charm!) at the quilt show a few weeks ago.   I also have the white magic chalk that comes off with steam, that works great too.  The pink I really like (I don't need steam) and I can use it on white and light color fabrics.  It does tend to come off from the vibration of the machine.  I've used this stencil a number of time so very familiar with it.  Not sure how the pink chalk would work on a stencil that I'm just getting use to simply because it does have a tendency to come off while quilting (which is what I kinda like about it - easy removal).

LOL this picture has ALOT of chalk on it!!  Normally I don't have *that* much on there.  But for illustration purposes, we used a *little* extra.  I also like to mark the lines for the ruler work - yep I tend to mark AND use the ruler.  I use a regular chalk pencil for this part.   For the back ground feather I mark the spine with the air erasable marking tool.  The line just goes away over time.   You may have to click on the picture to see the purple lines.

Here's  a picture close up of the purple line.  I just free hand roughly where I want the spine to be.  In this case the feathers are going around the block so all I have to do is mark roughly in the middle making sure there are nice gentle curves all the way around.   Now that the marking is done, it's time to get to some quilting.

Here's my marking tools that were used.

And this is what it looks like when quilted.  You can see the chalk is gone and the purple marks erased.  I'm hoping with the feathers going around the block that there will be a bit of motion in the quilting when it's all done.

I hope everyone enjoys the day and enjoys the freedom that we have which allows us to choose how we spend this day!