Hydrangea Quilt with Curling Amish Feather

a row of beautiful curling Amish feathers

What a beautiful custom longarm quilted quilt.   This customer loves tiny stippling (very small meandering) and asked if I would quilt this on this beautiful hydrangea quilt.  Well of course I would.  In fact that would look stunning if combined with outlining all the beautiful hydrangea flowers on this quilt.

shown laying sideways on a queen size bed

But this quilt also needed a “showboat”.  Something of a WOW effect that would be complimented by all that outlining and stippling.  So as you can see, a secondary design in this quilt is the long lines (flowing from left to right in the photo above).    And a Curling Amish Feather traveling the length of the quilt was the perfect solution.

Hydrangeas on dark background; stippling around blooms

The  outer 2 rows and the center row are mostly panel blocks that I quilted with the outlining and stippling.

For this I used a very fine 100wt thread, Kimono Silk by Superior Threads  This is a wonderful thread that all but disappears, leaving only a lovely texture.


 For the Curling Amish Feather I used Magnifico Thread by Superior Threads
  This is a beautiful 40 wt Trilobal Polyester thread with a beautiful sheen.  It lets my free motion quilting shine.  

Hydrangea block with hand guided custom quilting

For the bobbin thread I used the same as was in my needle.

The batting I used is Quilter's Dream 80/20 
The cotton in this batting gives lots of great stability for the dense quilting in this quilt.  And the poly portion of this batting gives this quilt just enough loft to make all those hydrangea blossoms puff up and have a bit of a 3-D effect.  I love this batting.  It drapes beautifully and gives the quilt a luxurious feel.

stippling around the blossoms and butterflies

These close-up pictures show why I love custom free motion quilting.  Hand guided quilting allows me to quilt around features in the fabric.  In this way my quilting compliments the fabric without overpowering it or covering it indiscriminately.

Even in the outside border I stippled around each of the white hydrangea blooms allowing them to pop up; almost burst out of this quilt.  A lovely effect.  

Outer border stippling around the blooms

 If you like this kind of custom free motion longarm quilting, be sure to subscribe to my blog.   And better yet, if you have a quilt top that's just screaming  . . .  "quilt me!"  I would be honored to quilt it for you.

There's lots more info about pricing and preparing your top for quilting on my website Quilts by Hannelore

And lastly, please, let me know what you think.  Leave a comment below.  Thank you, Hannelore