Lots of Little Pebbles

So, the saga of the blue place mats continues, though it's coming together with positive results. As you all may recall, once I finally came up with a solution for the piecework, after quite a journey, the next step was to figure out how I would quilt these guys. I drew a few sketches in my notebook, and decided to try slightly wonky, echoed circles mimicking the print on the border, but at a much larger scale.

Not only did I have trouble doing freehand circles at that scale (especially working at my machine on my dining table, so I only had the throat of the machine as a working surface), but I felt that the motif felt a little too juvenile for the design of the place mats at this stage. Back to the drawing board (quite literally). I still liked the idea of circles, and decided to try my hand at pebble quilting. And how effective it is!!

However, it is also extremely intense on both one's concentration and the muscles from the neck, shoulders and down to the fingers. I find I need to take a break just about every 15 minutes or so, otherwise I start getting sloppy, and it shows! This also requires a LOT of thread! I love how the variegated thread looks with these place mats - I went with Sulky Blendables and am very happy with the outcome. However, these come in 500m spools, and I am about to start on my 3rd spool after quilting just 5 of the 8 mats. Each one is using up about 3 bobbins! I've quilted whole crib quilts with under 2 bobbins' worth of thread!! But darn it, it's going to be worth it when they're done, right??