Leaf Quilt--Done!

I finished the autumn leaf quilt!  The blocks were completed several years ago, it remained to sew them together then quilt and bind everything.  The quilt is quite large, about 5' x 6.5'.  The perfect size to snuggle on the couch with a companion :)  Now to find a snuggle buddy...

I'd planned to use some cool free motion quilting designs, before I knew how hard that is.  Instead I quilted mostly in the ditch with some free motion on the white inner border.

The leaves have Art Deco-ish straight line designs, more visible from the back.  I added yellow perle cotton bobbin work to outline the sawtooth border.  I may add a line of burgundy stitching outside the dark red border.

Leaf Quilting

Sawtooth border; free-motion quilting

At right are the sawtooth and white borders.  The edge of the quilt has a 3" wide dark red border, 1/2" white border, then green binding.
More photos here

Back: leaves

The bobbin work was done using a straight stitch, 3.5mm stitch length, invisible nylon thread in the needle and perle cotton in the bobbin.  I bypassed the bobbin case's tension spring when inserting the bobbin.

You can also couch thicker threads, especially textured threads or yarn.  In that case use a narrow zig zag, nylon or matching thread, and pull the thread through the hole in your needle plate if there is one.  A couching presser foot would be even better.  A center pull ball or thread wound around a reused thread spool are good ways to hold the thread, and I typically let it dispense from my lap.