It's Flimsy Friday!

Pat Inspired Me

I can't believe it's Friday already.  Boy, this week has really gone by fast but I'm glad Friday is here so I can work on my flimsy again.  Remember when I posted about this a few weeks ago?  For those of you who are new to my blog, I will explain.  Recently a group of quilting friends and I have decided to set aside every Friday to work on our unfinished quilt tops also known as flimsies.  This is not an exclusive group, if you want to join in on the Friday fun, feel free to grab the button and share your progress : )

When we first started working on our flimsies, I was somewhat limited as to what I could do because I was recuperating from surgery.  Now, I am able to work sitting at a table which will make the entire process go much easier.  Last week, I just about finished the marking on my quilt that I call 'Pat Inspired Me.'

As I've been working on marking my quilt for hand quilting, I think about all of the wonderful tools we have out there that make this process easier, and here's what I enjoy using.

I'm a stencil girl . . . I love collecting stencils and I love using them creatively for unique quilting designs.  I usually pick up a nice supply of different stencils every time I go to a quilt show and my favorite vendor is The Stencil Company.  They also have a website, and I can spend hours looking at all of the different designs, notions, etc.  To learn more about The Stencil Company click HERE. 

Since I chose a flower/leaf vining border for this quilt, I thought a leaf design in some areas would be great.  Here's my quilting plan:

On the on-point blocks (just inside the inner border) I will be using this design:  (The leaf design only on the left side of the stencil).


I thought a simple design would look nice on the inner border so chose this:





My favorite marking pencil is the Sewline pencil.  Instead of using graphite lead, the Sewline pencil uses a ceramic lead which is much easier to remove with either the Sewline pencil eraser or a damp cloth and it does not smear.  I have the single pencils but recently purchased the Sewline Trio pencil. 

It has a 360-degree rotating mechanism that lets you choose the tracing point for your project.  You can put any color lead into the pencil but I use black for tracing light fabrics and white for darker fabrics.  The third choice you have is a tracing roller which works really nice when using design  transfer paper such as Saral or Transdoodle.

Since the fabric I chose for my border is a floral/leaf vine design, I thought the best way to quilt this will be to just outline stitch around the flowers and follow the vine around the quilt.  This is one of those fabrics where it is difficult to choose one color for marking.

Border Fabric for Pat Inspired Me

I am hoping that I get a lot accomplished on this Flimsy Friday as I am really anxious to start hand quilting!

Whatever your plans are for today and the weekend, I hope you find a little time to sew!