Quilting Advice For Wall Hanging
 

I've made this little 27x20 quilt using scraps from all of the donations quilts I've made over the years (and some fabric in the box to be used next year). Blocks finished to 1", inner border is 1/2" and outer is 1". Binding will match the outer border. Originally it was just going to be a cat quilt, but it turned out sort of cuter than I expected so I'm thinking a wall hanging which I've never done before. This is also the first quilt I've ever put a proper border on, and then I did a double border and mitered the corners because aim high. (3 out of 4 corners worked the first time, the 4th was a journey.)

The quilting part always makes me nervous because right now it is cute and I fear I can only goof it up. I'm not confident with free motion, so lines it will be.

My two thoughts are the following but open to other ideas. Since the squares aren't universally square, I did eliminate diagonal although that usually is my go-to.

1. Stitch in the ditch. I quilted my first quilt this way and my perfectionism made this difficult, lines of stitches that went outside the ditch bugged me to no end and lines were not straight on the back. That was 20 years ago and I've not ever tried it again. I now have a walking foot that has a bar that will run down the ditch which should make it less of a challenge, it is a wall hanging so no one better ever turn it over and the quilt is relatively small so it shouldn't be too bad.

2. Lines on each side of the ditch. I really like how this looks on larger quilts - typically a straight stitch 1/4" or 1/2" wide of the ditch, to make it like a little cross hatch design. It does look cute on the back side which isn't a plus for a wall hanging. The above mentioned walking foot with the bar has a wide stitch area, so I could go out say 3 or 3.5 mm wide of the center, which is close to 1/8" leaving 3/4" of the 1" finished squares. But I could see this being terribly busy on such a small quilt.

Help please.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Bu...QEr6qJXAA=w800

Random aside - I didn't fussy cut much because I had very limited scraps of most of the fabrics. My favorite square is a red one which ended up with just the back end of a cat. Anyone with cats knows they are quite proud of that area, so it seemed fitting that the block ended up that way!

I am absolutely no help at all with quilting designs or wall hangings. Just wanted to say good job! What a nice set of memories in fabric you have there, uniting together for even a greater project.

I like to include little jokes with my fabrics, like I number my blocks Alpha Across and Numbers Below and if there is a K9 block there must be dog fabric. And sometimes the fabric plays it's own jokes on us. Got to laugh either way :)

I love all the Aunt Grace repo's in the quilt, (Can you tell I'm a big fan.) You did a beautiful job on this wall hanging. I would go around with the walking foot. I would also make colorful loops over the top to the back to hang it instead of a sleeve. I am really tickled with your quilt .. Fun, fun, fun.

Very nice mini. If it was me I would stitch on the diagonal on the
white squares. Stitching in the ditch with those tiny squares might
not be as straight as you hope. You will be going in and out of the
ditch even with a good SID foot.

Have you considered using a serpentine stitch with your walking foot? You could center it on the seams or go diagonally on the white squares only.

Another idea. You could sew some organic lines.
This little mini reminded me of yours. See how cute it is with those lines.
https://www.diaryofaquilter.com/2020...-tutorial.html

I went with the diagonal only in the white. Looks lovely. Lines are not terribly straight from the back (let's be honest, not the front either), but it is done. I still need to go around the binding and then I'll put up another picture.

Thank you for all of the great ideas!

And here it is done. To round out the "firsts", this was the first time I bound something with single fold binding.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/st...8-uW8VyGQ=w600

Hooray! <sound of clapping> Looking good, Trudii

I hope you are as excited and happy with this project as the rest of us are for you! Thanks so much for sharing.