Hey Everyone, welcome back to Free Motion Friday.

Wow, it’s Friday already – where did the week go?

So I made this little table topper from leftover blocks on Stash Blasting Wednesday and today is quilting day. I was thinking about adding on another border and have decided against that for two reasons – first of all I didn’t really like it the piece with a yellow border and I want to use the remaining yellow fabric in another project which means no yellow border for this piece.

Even though today is called Free Motion Friday I don’t always do free motion quilting. It is not always appropriate for every project and on this piece I decided straight lines with the walking foot were in order to highlight the X and O.

I picked thread to match the purple and the yellow fabrics. I started quilting with the yellow X since it was in the middle and it is always a good practice to start quilting from the middle out towards the edges to prevent puckering, fabric rolling and any unevenness.

Purple, yellow in the shape of an O on a white background

Close up of thread

To start I quilted a ¼″ in from the edge of the yellow piece and then echoed that at a ½″ from the previous quilting line. I didn’t have to mark any lines on my quilt as my walking foot has these measurements already marked for me which is awesome.

This was mirrored on the other side of the yellow pieces and then a line was quilted down the centre of the yellow pieces.

The same quilting was done in the purple pieces. I am very pleased with how the quilting has made the X and O stand out even more on the white background.

X and O design in yellow and purple with quilting lines

Quilting complete in X and O

I decided to leave the white negative space free of quilting. Last week I did the opposite and quilted only the negative space on the Hatchet table runner. I probably could do stitch in the ditch along the white seams just to give it a bit of quilting but will wait and see as stitch in the ditch is not my favourite stitching to do. I can always do it after the binding is on as nothing is going to shift or move.

The threads have all been pulled through and I just need to finish the binding.

I would really have liked to use the dark purple for the binding but unfortunately I had none of that fabric left and no white either so yellow it is. And the yellow looks okay.

Another piece done and out of the way with some extra blocks removed from the stash along with a piece of fabric for the backing and a square of batting. Only a few thousand metres to go.

Happy Quilting!