A PhD and Free-Motion Quilting, all in a week!

Hello Blog, long time no see. I've been in a thesis hole for the past few months focused on nothing but microRNAs, RNA binding proteins and metastasis. But now! Now! Well, if you'd like to call my Dr. Pom I really wouldn't object.

Part of my thesis-hole survival involved many cookies, more instant mac and cheese cups than I'd like to admit, and frequent perusals on eBay for vintage quilt tops with the idea that one day in the distant future I'd learn how to free-motion quilt on something that I was not emotionally invested in.

I lost many, many quilt top auctions before I finally won one, and on the same day I also impulse purchased a new pre-made top on sale for $12. It turned out that the vintage top (a subject for another post) was GORGEOUS but in need of some TLC, so I decided to go ahead and do my worst on the cheap top. I spray basted onto a bed sheet from Etsy, then did my best impression of free-motion quilting. For a first pass I think I did pretty well!

Initially I was aiming for tear drops but my hands want to make villi so that's what I got, wider in the sashing and tighter to frame the bunnies.

I'm actually pretty proud of myself, the stitching has a few uneven spots of super tiny and super big stitches but not as many as I expected. I found that going fairly fast helped me with evenness.  I did have occassional tension problems on the bobbin side, I'm not sure how to fix that, but again they were intermittent.

 I think this quilt will be donated to Bumble Beans Basics at my next Quilt Guild Meeting :)