The Generations Quilt: Planning a Quilting Design
Hello Friends and Welcome!
Over the weekend, I took the Generations Quilt on a visit with my sister, and after a little more hand applique, all of the half Dresdens are finally stitched down!
With the quilt top progressing so well, I'd like to take some time to draw out some quilting designs, see which ones I like best, and share them with Mom and Grandma to hear their thoughts!
But first, I'll be working through my ideas here, so let's get started!
The Quilt Top
Before we can start planning the quilting, we need to take a look at the quilt top.
At our last meeting, we agreed that we wanted Dresdens on the half blocks, but I wasn't totally clear on the decision regarding the quarter blocks in the four corners.
I've edited quarter Dresdens into the corners to give an idea of how it would look with them in place, and I'll confirm with Mom and Grandma whether or not they think we should add those!
I'm not sure that it makes a big difference to the overall effect of the quilt, so I'll be happy with whichever option we choose!
Once that's been decided, I think we should add a narrow border using one of the solids to clean up the edges and reinforce the partial Dresdens, but that's another decision I'll have to confirm later.
The Quilting Design
Since the Generations Quilt project is meant to represent four generations of my family, I want the quilting design to represent and combine the styles of all four generations!
My Great Grandmother was a very traditional quilter, using quilted outlines to accent the applique, a simple grid to fill the background, and more intricate stenciled designs in wide borders. All of this quilting would have been done by hand!
For Grandma's quilts, she would sometimes send them to a longarmer to be quilted, but if she did them herself, she usually quilted by hand. The designs she used were also very traditional, but she would occasionally learn a new design that she chose to incorporate!
The majority of Mom's quilts have been quilted by a longarmer, but she has started learning to machine quilt them herself! Most of the designs she's used so far have been straight line, edge to edge motifs, but after taking a free motion quilting class together, I'm excited to see her style expand!
My style is a little more difficult to define. I feel like every quilt I've quilted has been different, but I have learned that I really enjoy using a mix of hand and machine quilting!
With all of that in mind, this is the design I plan to propose to Mom and Grandma:
For the Dresdens, I think a simple outline will be a great way to accent the piecing and reinforce the applique! Since they're such organic shapes, I think it will be easiest to quilt this by hand, which is how many of us prefer to quilt our quilts!
For the background, I like the idea of a grid motif, referencing Mom's edge to edge style and the traditional designs used by Grandma and Great Grandmother.
Putting these together, we get a really traditional design, so I'd like to make a few changes to make the quilting slightly more modern!
Instead of using all hand quilting, I would love to quilt the background using a mix of hand and machine stitching, which is very much my style. It would also create more visual interest and a more modern effect if we varied the spacing of the background grid!
I'm really happy with the mix of traditional and more modern elements that make up this design and I can't wait to hear what Mom and Grandma think of it!
The Thread Selection
In addition to choosing a design, we'll also need some thread if we're going to do some quilting, and I've already found some that I think will work nicely!
For the hand quilting, I like to work with pearle cotton thread. Mom and I recently took part in a local shop hop and picked up some variegated, off white thread while we were at the quilt store!
For the machine quilting, I wanted to incorporate the traditional spirit of using what you have on hand, so I dug through my thread stash and found several white spools!
I'm not actually sure what the fibre content of this thread is, though I suspect it's polyester. Normally, I like to use cotton for all my fabric and thread, but I'm sure many of the fabrics used in my Great Grandmother's blocks aren't 100% cotton, so the mystery thread will be friends with that!
After all this planning, I hope Mom and Grandma will like the design I've come up with! I'll be meeting them for quilt guild next week, so I'm excited to get caught up and find out!
In the meantime, I would love to hear what all of you think of my plans for the first Generations Quilt! Please let me know in the comments below, by sending me an email, or by reaching out on Instagram!
I can't wait to hear what all of you think!
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