Just finished the second Diamonds Quilt.

In this quilt I wanted the quilting to provide texture but not detract from the strength of the individual fabrics. I began at one edge stitching-in-the-ditch but I didn’t get far because I could anticipate running into trouble with the backing not distributing evenly. I switched to quilting the individual diamonds (I still haven’t counted them – there’s approximately 130-140 pieces in the quilt including the triangles and half diamonds at the edges).

Because I was quilting-in-the-hoop, I had to hoop each diamond separately as well as change the thread for each diamond. I was able to use the same variegated thread for several diamonds but to make sure the backing remained flat I started in the middle – that meant I couldn’t quilt every similar coloured block one after the other because they were distributed throughout the quilt top and I needed to work my way from centre to edge making sure the backing was taut with each hooping.

Once I had all the diamonds quilted I resumed stitching-in-the-ditch which now was straight forward.

I finished the quilt (final size: 48″ x 64 1/2″) with a hidden binding because I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of the diamonds at the edge of the piece.

Added a hidden binding and a label and the quilt is finished.