You’ve probably noticed that any quilting photos I post have been sort of…hard to see…I’ve been really debating about whether or not to show a picture that lets you actually get a good idea of what I’m doing.  Not sure why, maybe I don’t want you to make fun of me or something?

Because yes, I’m taking this quilt WAY over the top.  WAY.

There are 30 full or partial LARGE feathered wreath motifs, and 49 full or partial small wreath motifs.  Millions of pearls and pebbles.

The spines were done by the computer.  The dark blue star points are going to be finished by the computer, too.  I tried doing one freehand and it was bad.

Everything else is freehand.  I mark guidelines for the size of the wreath, and I marked the curved cross-hatching, but it’s all quilted freehand.

I’m definitely going to need one or more trips to the chiropractor before this is all over.

In order to see all of that light thread on light fabric, I’ve had to resort to side-lighting.  I turn OFF the overhead light, turn OFF the light on the machine itself, and have set this lamp either on the back of the table or on the quilt itself:

Don’t worry, it’s light.  (Ha.  Sorry about the pun.) (The first photo was taken with the overhead light off, and this light shining on the quilt.)

The bulb gives off a really nice cool WHITE light, none of that yellow-y stuff.  Part of why I switched to sitting it ON the quilt, is that I can quickly take it off, set it UNDER the quilt, so I can check tension.

The wreaths are much more fun to stitch than the pebbles, but I need to make sure I’m doing some pebbling as I go along, because I’m going to really hate myself if I wait until the end to finish all of the pebbling.

I meant to count how many wreaths I have left, I’ve been counting all day.  I count a lot when I’m in the midst of something like this.  Two done, seventy-seven to go…when I’m piecing quilts I count and count and count, and somehow I always end up at the end of the quilt having miscounted and being short by 1 or 2 of something. I’m pretty sure that must be a gremlin.

You’ll only really need to worry about me if I start counting pebbles.  Or if I start singing 99 bottles of beer on the wall, only it’ll be

79 more feathered wreaths to quilt, 79 more feathered wreaths…

Mark it out, quilt real fast, 78 more feathered wreaths to quilt…

OK.  You’d better start worrying about me, because now I’ve got that stuck in my head.  Oops.