Background: Sunbonnet Sue

Twas a good day for quilting as the skies were cloudy. Thankful for the overnight rain that assisted me with the watering of the raised beds in my backyard, pictured here from my sewing room lookout.

When not driving the kids to and from work, theater classes and shopping,  I spent the greater part of the day working on the Sunbonnet Sue quilt. Decided to quilt a line down the center of the sashing strips, 1" in from the seamline. I used the very daring red thread here, as it blended right in with the red stripe in the sashing fabric.

Finally reached a decision on the background quilting for the applique blocks. After considering several options,  I saw this on p. 46 of  Quilting Designs from the Past by Jenny Carr Kinney (C&T Publishing, 2008). I met her briefly at Quilt Market in 2007 and knew I had to pick this book up when it became available. It has 300+ designs from 1810-1940.

Using my small square ruler, I marked a 1" square from each corner, then a 2", 3", 4" and one more line to finish off the design. Only finished one so far but think it's a great choice. The line goes up to but not through the applique design. It is quilted continuously by traveling in the ditch and around the applique to get to the next line.

The design that didn't make it: outlining the qpplique and perhaps echo quilting beyond that..though the quilting would probably be too heavy with a 1/2" repeated outline. Much prefer the 1" square design and every block will be marked for this plan.

Happy that all the quilting decisions have been made. It's a road map to the finish and very motivating to know the next step. Indecision really breeds procrastination. Best remedy is to mull over the old antique quilting design books for inspiration and get quilting!

Copyright ©2011, Sharon Baggs