Kaffe Fassett Quilt Progress Update

I was determined to make time to quilt over this long weekend. Thursday was a write-off between church and dinner. (And they were both well worth it; don't get me wrong.) And the same is more or less true of Sunday. But I figured Friday and Saturday--they could be designated quilting days. I was fired up.

But before I get to that, I need to introduce the newest member of my "toolbox":

Yes, a couple months ago I bought myself an extension table for my sewing machine. It makes a huge difference for larger projects and especially with free motion. I have been loving it!

I had one of the the three pieces* of my quilt marked for the large circles. I first sewed in the long direction, curving one way and then the next as I went down the quilt:

They're a little hard to see, but you should be able to make out
the hourglass shapes on the yellow squares.

Once that direction was done, I went across the short way:

Now all the curves "connect" and make the circles I was after. This quilting was done in red thread so that it would stand out a little more. I did all the stitching with my walking foot and it kept all the layers flat and where they should be.

Here's a wider view: (you may want to click to embiggen)

Once those curves were done, I turned my attention to the red squares. I switched to free motion and just outlined the main circle design in the square and then traced whatever shapes I wanted to inside the circle.

It was nearly impossible for me to get it on camera, but maybe you can get an idea from this:

Then I started to run into trouble. My upper thread kept splitting and after restarting a bunch of times, changing needles and cleaning the machine,  I decided it was time to bring it in for its overdue service and cleaning. So I brought it to the shop this afternoon and hope that they will fix what is wrong.

Meanwhile I was happy with what I got done. I also got a pretty good idea of how much time it's going to take. (Too long to get it done in "one big weekend" but not so big that a few good sessions won't get it taken care of.)

And now that my machine is in the "shop," I can turn my attention back to gift knitting. (I might give you a sneak peek later...)

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*I have divided the quilt top into thirds and will be quilting it in pieces and then joining them together at the end, following methods of Marti Mitchell.