Quilting the Mystery--Fifth Step Background Quilting of Log Cabin Borders

Lines that didn't work well with the curves

I struggled with what to quilt in the outer log cabin border. I thought that I could do another set of lines. I used the ruler and stitched one corner. . .nope. . .the quilt rebelled!!!! The lines weren't awful. The lines didn't relate well to the curves that I had stitched in the log cabin blocks.  I unstitched the sample and noted to myself that putting the quilt under the needle and going for it. . .sweaty palms or not. . .wasn't going to be the answer this time!

Leaves as a filler stitch

The question, What to do? loomed in front of me. I thought about the recipient who is my mom. She is a gardener. She starts plants from seeds that she has saved. What really tickles her is to transplant "volunteers" so that she has her old friends to enjoy through another gardening season.

Filler flower wasn't it

She likes to transplant those volunteers when they have their first true leaves and will do it early in the morning or late in the afternoon. She especially likes it when Mother Nature cooperates and waters the transplants in for her!

Now I had an idea. . .leaves! I could quilt lots and lots of leaves. I used a variegated King Tut  40 weight cotton thread on the top and a 50 weight cotton thread in the bobbin. My background was cream so I used a cream thread in the bobbin. If there was an issue with the tension visible on the front, the background would hide it.

Adding leaves to the inner log cabin border

The thread worked great. I did have some issues with the thread wanting to make a nest  which was a hassle until I changed the needle, rewound the bobbin and stitched slower.

The next section to quilt was the other smaller log cabin border. I tried quilting some meander fillers with a green silk thread. That filler was too blah and the quilting didn't balance the quilted leaves. The thread weights were the issue.

 I tried quilting a motif. It wasn't right either. I thought about the quilt as a whole. Originally, I had planned to quilt these two backgrounds with the same motif. I decided to go with my original thought and quilt more leaves. Whew! Quilting more leaves worked. It took 12 hours over a week to quilt this section.

I wanted to quilt the skinny pink border next. All along, I had planned to quilt intersecting circles. The quilt rebelled. Instead, I divided the quilt into inch segments and quilted two zig zag lines with silk thread. I chose silk thread to create a subtle texture. In other words, you would have to stick your nose close to the quilt to see it. The quilt liked my choice and it played well with the background leaf quilting.

Zig zag quilting pattern in skinny pink border

I've two more sides to quilt of the skinny pink border. I have an idea of what to stitch in the outer brown border. The quilt is telling me to repeat straight lines. Originally, I had planned to stitch feathers with a bold thread; but, I believe adding more lines is the best option.

Repeating a pattern helps to unify the quilting elements in a quilt. I still have the shadowing to complete in the square in a square border and in the smaller log cabin border. I'll make my decision about entering it in the quilt show in a few more days as there are still a lot of hours ahead of me to finish this project in time for the show which is at the end of March!!

Since my last post regarding this project, the quilt now has a name.  . .Gardener's Mystery! Isn't it interesting that often when you put out a request for some help, the answer comes? It is also miraculous! When you garden, you often don't know which plants are going to be the show stoppers for the season. It seems to vary from year to year. Mother Nature also spews hail storms, late and early frosts as well as stir up other challenges for the gardener. I think the quilt name will tickle my mom.