Custom Quilting my Seafarers quilt

My feet are sore, but my heart is happy! This weekend I spent a lot of time standing beside my longarm quilting machine, working on one of my own projects.

It’s Seafarers quilt, which has become very dear to my heart. It represents my admiration and gratitude for The Netherlands, this country that has given us such a warm welcome. More on that (and the pattern release) later. Today - the quilting!

At the center of Seafarers is the Compass block, the anchor for this medallion-style quilt. I’m not 100% in love with how I quilted this block, but I do like that it is less-densely quilted than the surrounding areas. As a result, the center compass really stands out and the un-quilted lime spikes especially pop.

Neighborhood blocks extend from all four sides of Compass. I’ve quilted them with an elongated geometric texture, which securely reinforces all those tiny architectural seams.

Then comes the Tulip Crown blocks! These blocks explode from all four corners of the Compass center. I had always felt they were fireworks, so I’ve chosen a fun, circular quilting motif that gives the impression of a turning or bursting movement.

What has taken the most time? All the curvy filler quilting! The solid Serpent teal fabric is either water or sky, depending upon how you’d like to look at it. This wavy, swirly quilting pattern works well for sea or windy, cloudy Dutch skies, in my opinion. Wrapping the quilting around the Tulip Crown blocks and bridges was quite a chore. It wouldn’t have been so slow if I was guiding the quilting machine by hand. However, all of my longarm work is computer-guided, so this filler quilting is as well. Thus, it takes a lot of set up to make that happen. I could use my machine in hand-guided mode, but I never have. Maybe someday I’ll be ready to tackle that learning curve.

Today, Day 3 for this quilting project, I’m working on the outer borders. I think I had the most trouble choosing a pattern for the Friendship Braid borders. I started quilting an all-over pattern on it and disliked it so much that I unpicked it right away. This pattern that I’ve settled on has some sense of motion to compliment the directionality of the braid. I think it’s going to be effective.

I’m really happy with this flower in the half square triangle blocks! It gives just the right touch of quilting to these pretty blocks, plus coordinates so well with the curvy filler texture on the teal solid. Yay!

Here’s hoping I manage to find another 2-3 hours to finish this up today! Thanks to your awesome response to my free batting promotion, I already have some customer quilts waiting their turn on the longarm machine.