More feathers and a soupcon of Soupcon quilts

I worked on the feathers in the first border in Piccadilly to the Nines. The sides were done so all that was left was to reconcile the corners. This is what I came up with and it works.

Here are a couple of pictures of the sides and corners quilted.

I think the feathers fill the space nicely. I'll go back later and add more quilting to the nine patches in the center however my next step will be to quilt the hourglass border.

So what to do with the hourglass border? I thought I would do some sort of feather and that I would use my variegated green Fantastico thread by Superior. I just love the colour and the sheen of this thread and I thought it would work on my quilt but I'm not sure I'm happy with the appearance of the plumes. There would of course be echo quilting but I don't think it will change how I feel about the quilting.

I'm going to do some reverse sewing and try something different - maybe feathers with shorter, fatter plumes. And if that doesn't work for me then I might just ditch quilt all of the seams with green thread and call it it a day. In the meanwhile I can work on the green striped border. I'm thinking of doing a figure 8 in gold thread.  I'll share pictures of what I decide to do in the hourglass border but I am curious, have you ever quilted a large area of hourglass blocks and if so what did you do? Did you like it or would you do something different the next time? I'm open to suggestions! Hilda at Every Stitch made a Simon quilt which is jam packed with hourglass blocks which were ditch quilted. You can see her beautiful Simon quilt here. It is a simple finish that lets the fabrics be the star.

One of the blogs I follow is Amy's Free Motion Quilting Adventures. Amy has some really great videos and instructions for machine quilting on a domestic sewing machine. I left a comment on her blog because  I noticed she used different free motion feet and was wondering why she changed them. I also mentioned that my metal open toe foot gives me problems when I'm near bulky seams. She recommended the larger circular plastic foot. I gave it a go and the quilting near bulky seams was easier.  I also found that it tended to flatten and smooth the area that was going to be quilted and I quite liked that. The downside was that when I had to do any backtracking it was harder to see where I had stitched.

There were a few more pictures of Soupcon quilts on the Soupcon QAL Flickr page so I thought I would show them today. Soupcon is a French word that means "a little bi"t and in my first QAL I wanted to share a little bit of many different techniques that I enjoy. You can find the links for this QAL under the tab Quilt Alongs by Karen H at the top of this page.

Sophie (Pezze di fantasia) has two Soupcon quilts on the go. She has now added the Step 4 border and the quilts are lovely. I am particularly fond of the embroidery and the colours she has used in this one. Very summertime (will it EVER be summer?).

In her second Soupcon quilt she used my technique for foundation pieced English paper piecing to make the striking star in the center. Her choice of border fabrics frames her quilt beautifully! Well done Sophie - keep up the good work!

When I'm not quilting my Piccadilly to the Nines I'm preparing the post for Block 2 in the Value Proposition QAL.  I have to admit it is one of my favourites (just like the other seventeen). It is a very simple but effective arrangement and I hope you'll enjoy it! This time I will include a black & white picture of my block as well as a colour picture to provide guidance.

There'll be no post tomorrow because I'm sewing with friends. So until Wednesday (when hopefully I'll have made a decision about the border and maybe have another Godstone Grannies block to share) happy sewing!
Karen H