Second Swoon

For several months, I've been working on my second Swoon quilt.  The first one isn't finished.  The top is together, there was some unpleasantness with fabrics not matching, and I don't feel Christmas-y enough to work on it.

I started on another, using fabrics from Timber & Leaf.  Again, there are some issues with having the "same" gray but it's two different colors (one from a local shop, the other from an online shop, but they're the same color, same manufacturer, just different bolts - it's only really visible in sunlight, so it was too late when it was finally visible.  sigh).

The top is all together and I'm working on the quilting!  I started by stitching in the ditch around each star.  Then I added some loops in the triangles - something I've always wanted to try.  Not bad, for a first try!  There's room for improvement, but overall, they're fine.  I did have to use my chalk marker to draw the lines on first...  So the photo is of the back side - the chalk isn't visible.

First try - not bad!

Then I started with the REAL free motion quilting!  There was an opportunity to do some really neat things in the negative space between blocks, but I chickened out and decided to keep on with the paisley pattern - I'm getting pretty good at it!

Paisley in the negative space

There's still a lot of quilting left to do, and I need to figure out what to do with the stars themselves -  straight lines to contrast with all the curvy quilting and accent the straight lines of the piecing?  

It was windy... but you get the idea!

Linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!  

-Melissa