Following Along with Leah Day - Week 28 - Auditioning Patterns II

Auditioning Pattern and Thread Choices on the Actual Fabric

In my last post I auditioned three different free motion quilting patterns for the border of the quilt I am making for my grandniece. The one that looked best on paper to me and to most of you who commented was the one with a scallop shell motif surrounded by micro stippling.  Before I committed to doing it on the actual quilt, I wanted to test my marking technique and thread choices on a block I created from the border scraps.

I traced the scallop shell on a square of Solvy. Next I pinned the Solvy square on the quilt. Then I sewed on the tracing, tore away the Solvy and surrounded the stitched scallop with micro stippling.

The thread choice for the beach fabric was easy. It is a Marathon yellow, beige and white variegated that I used in the main section of the quilt. The tricky choice was which thread to use for the black border. The obvious choice was black. My muse said obvious, but wrong. If not black, then what? I perused my thread collection. When I saw the brown, rusty with hints of red and yellow King Tut variegated it called to me. I am pleased with how it ties the beach fabric with the black fabric and allows the scallop to stand out.