Marking A Quilt Design

Spent part of the day in Wally World getting a refund on my Droid.  Nope..still keeping it.  It turns out the other day the priced dropped and I asked for the difference.  Wally World was great and very helpful.

While going through the apps section on my Droid in B&N I found an Amazon barcode scanner.  You can scan the book and see if it's cheaper via Amazon.  Of course it is.  We all know B&N is incompetent with their prices but it was great to download an e-book from Amazon.com right to my iPad from the store to get the book cheaper.  One book was 50 dollars cheaper via Amazon when I showed DH.  He about fell over as he thought about buying it.  I bet stores HATE these kinds of apps.

I have all of the outline quilting done on my quilt.  I have the first part of the border done and have spent the evening working on a design for the eight plain squares:

Umm..Can the feathers go backwards as I just realized I did that?  Oh..wait, I have the paper backwards.
 LOL.


Making a quilting stencil can be quite easy or a giant pain.  Here's what I do:

First; if I can get lucky like the above, I already had some stencils that fit in an 8x8 inch square.  If not, draw out the size square you need filled on a separate paper(s).  I draw lines diagonally, horizontally and vertically to have a defined area.  You can easily fold over the paper as well to get those lines.

I then draw what I want and refine as I go.  If what I have looks terrible, I draw another square and work with it again.  This is about having fun, not about perfection.  If you do a half design, fold over the paper and trace the other half to keep it symetrical.  You can do this in all four corners or on the diagonal.

This is where I KISS it.  I know there are specialty papers that let you "sew" the design and then pounce the chalk.  Meh.  I'm cheap.  I use regular typing paper, a pin and a water soluble pen.  I push the pin through the paper all around the design making small holes and then mark through the holes.

I put the design on the block, pin in place and where the holes are, put the pen in to mark the design.  I only had a fine pen to demonstrate so it's hard to see, but you'll get the idea:

Here's the corner design w/the dots.  I'll connect the dots with my marker and sew along the line.

  
If I had my thicker pen that I couldn't find, the dots would be much more visible.  I've never had a problem with a WS pen in the eight years I've used them.  Chalk drives me nuts and makes me sneeze like crazy.  

The last two pics were taking with my Droid camera.  I think it's just easier to use my own but I had to try it.

Then the question becomes, dark thread or light thread for the quilting?  Dark will show up mistakes (shhh..don't tell anyone I make mistakes) and the light will give a softer look to it.