A picture tells a thousand words...

...and what does this one tell? Well - it is Spring here and my daffodils are flowering cheerfully in the garden, and indoors. But also - the basting pin tin is full again! Every last pin is out of my Ann Randoll quilt and that is something to celebrate. 

Once that last pin was out I spread the quilt to review the quilting - checking there was enough of it. Being a medallion quilt with multiple borders the quilting needs to look balanced across each border. 

I'm happy with the centre... 

...happy with the clamshell border (just quilted in the ditch) 

..happy with the pinwheel border (quilted in squares) 

hmmm...not so happy with the two applique vine borders. Here I have a nasty case of 'Introduced Puckers'! See them?

There were no puckers or crinkles when the top was pieced but they easily get introduced when the fabric either side is quilted more densely. I was rather expecting this to happen, but hoping to get away with it. There's a bit more of it than I like, relative to the other borders. 

Solution?  Add a grid on the cream background of the applique borders. I use a large triangle ruler and a Hera marker to score the lines - very easy and quick.

The scored marking shows up beautifully in the hoop -  all ready to quilt: 

Here's some of the border before quilting the grid - complete with crinkles:

And some border after grid quilted - behaving better:

You might be thinking "What a huge bother!" but for me, it is a pleasure to hand quilt grid work around applique. You see, for years I have done it by machine - on my domestic machine - and I found it so tedious that way - all the stop/start, fixing a million threads and cutting a million threads. When hand quilting you just pass the thread between the layers from place to place - blissfully easy!

Here is an example..my Carolina Lily quilt which was quilted on my domestic machine. 

I went to a lot of trouble to give it the look of hand quilting because I just could not hand quilt ( or thought I couldn't) at that time. It took about a month to quilt on my machine but I'm guessing I could now hand quilt it in 3 months - and enjoy the process so much more. Interesting to look back in time.  

So I'll continue hand quilting Ann Randoll - I need to finish the two vine borders and then am thinking to add some parallel lines on the outer large hexagon border. It has only a mild case of Introduced Puckers  so not such dense quilting needed ...I hope. 

Meanwhile Wheat and Woods is growing.

A this point I decided I didn't fancy the itty bitty fractions of brown squares around the edges of the outer border applique triangles - looked too untidy somehow and the eye is drawn to them.

So I removed them - just a bit of applique unpicked. I tried a wavy strip of applique instead...

basted ready to needle turn

I think I like that better. Am keeping that unpicker on standby though! 

So that is where I am up to now -  three more corners to add to the top.

Meanwhile the garden is calling. There has been a bit of tree trimming - just a few branches trimmed and 'dead headed'. These eucalypts are beautiful but huge, and prone to drop great branches without notice . 

It's still a bit chilly to sit out for long but there is much growing and flowering happening. 

Hellebores and rhododendrons

Bluebells leafing up everywhere

Have a lovely weekend