Quilt Whisperer Wednesday #3

Another Wednesday is here, so time for another QW quilting plan.  This first quilt comes from Dory, a quilter who lives in Quincy, CA.  Dory has a quilt made exactly like this Hoffman  quilt called “Tradewinds:”

I first saw this quilt and thought of the Linda’s quilt I recently completed.  I recommend breaking the block designs into 2 blocks- the smaller pinwheel and the larger darker brown spaces.  I have done this in my first design sketch, which, by the way, would not be my final design pick:

But what if the recipient dislikes flowers?  So here are two more quilting plans:

The quilting above would be a terrific custom choice, plus for you professional machine quilters out there, this one would quilt up fast.  Here is the next one:

Personally, I do not like the feathered design on the darker block in the half quilt design above.  I would go with the middle plan if this were my quilt.  If you scroll up and down looking at the 3 plans, the middle one feels most balanced to me.

Thread Choice: I would choose 2 colors of thread; one for the light areas and one for the darker block areas.  It would blend nicely and look fabulous in both areas with low contrast.  I feel that picking low contrast thread is important here.  You want the quilting to enhance the quilt and the piecing and not overpower it.

Let me explain this further…  if the quilter were to pick only one color of thread, say a dark brown, the thread (and quilting) would look lovely in the dark parts of the quilt.  However, in the light areas would look awful and detract from the quilt.  Trust me on this!

Beginning sit down quilters: Here is an easy beginning quilting design appropriate for this quilt.  New quilters could use their walking foot and just follow the lines:

For sit down quilters who free motion quilt, choose the design that you believe you can do with you current skill level.

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Quilt Whisperer Extra: I have mentioned I am quilting a quilt for a local guild.  Here is my quilting plan for this quilt:

For this current quilt I am working on, the thread choice for each area is what will make this quilt work.  I have intentionally chosen less contrast thread for the inner black area around the star, so from a distance it will read as “black.”  I have intentionally done this to give the viewer a place to rest their eye before moving onto the outer piping ring area- which is quilted with a high contrast Rainbow  by Superior Threads. To show you this principle, I have left some areas black in the drawing above.

2 sided quilt: I have made this a 2 sided quilt, which is a quilt with an interesting back, by also choosing exact thread color for most of the colors in the star.  Combine this with the thread and quilting choices in the black area and the black area on the backing looks pretty cool! When I am done with this quilt you will see what I did- and know my thinking behind it.

I hope you have enjoyed this week QWW!  If you want to see my first two QWW, here are the links:

Quilt Whisperer #1

Quilt Whisperer #2

For all of you who have kindly sent me quilt pictures… keep watching!    Regards, Carla Barrett