getting closer

i did 2 and a half hours of quilting on the challenge quilt this afternoon - so the background quilting is done :)

tune out now if you don't think inanimate objects can have a mind of their own......
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this is shaping up to be the bolshiest piece i have made - it has very firm ideas on how it wants to evolve and actively discourages me from any other ideas i might have. for example i couldn't work out how to fill in the gaps between the stars (which are quilted as spirals) and started to do some hand stitching with fine copper wire . the quilt had other ideas - first i couldn't find a thimble, then i couldn't thread the needle. kept dropping the thimble when i did find it and got half way round a spiral when the thread broke. the wire that is fine and flexible and i have successfully stitched with it before) just snapped mid stitch.
i took the hint and asked the quilt what it wanted - and then it came to me. it wanted puddling. what i call puddle quilting anyway which is a kind of horizontal looping i suppose - not zig zags but a series of irregular controlled jerks across the quilt. the quilt was so happy that it docilely let me thread up the machine with black rayon and for the first time ever it all worked smoothly - the rayon did not snap once. this has never happened to me before - i've always abandoned the rayon and gone back to the usual polyester thread and i can only put it down to the good karma garnered by listening to the quilt.

so there is some hand stitching to go, applying the copper rings to the star centres and then - and then - will i be brave enough to carry out the boldest part of my plan??? if it doesn't work the whole piece will be irretrievably ruined

stay tuned