New Altar Cloth for The Leys School Cambridge

Recently, my dear friend Lynda showed me the patchwork piece she designed and made. It was, I think, her first ever piece of patchwork. She designed it as as new altar cloth for the chapel at the Leys School in Cambridge where her husband, the Reverend Clifford Meharry is retiring at the end of June as chaplain and teacher after 20 years of service.   With the end of term looming I offered my services to quilt and bind the piece. 

With much time on my hands, it was both an honour and a pleasure to do this for my friend. 

So, how should I quilt this piece?  The fabrics used were a mixture of old and new fabrics, mostly interfaced to give them some support. The prints were busy and after a bit of trial and error, I came the conclusion that free motion quilting would detract from the design. I wanted the crosses to really sing. 

Here I had a go at stitching 'in the ditch'. Didn't like this. Free Motion Quilting didn't work either as the quilt was rather heavy and the thread simply disappeared. 

Here is a close up of me using my walking foot and a built in stitch called 'serpentine' where I adjust the width of the wave as a well as the stitch length.  

Here are the settings on my new Janome machine which has a nice wide arm. Still getting used to used to it. I use stitch #20 adjusted from the default with a longer stitch length and a wider 'wave'. 

Here I am in my studio quilting. 

I wear textured gloves to make it easier to move the fabric around

Here is the finished altar cloth. Doesn't it look great with the stained glass?