mrsbudryzer

I'm making a lap quilt for my daughter. It is red and white in the middle, then black and white border around that, then a black border around that with a solid black backing....I can't decide what color thread to quilt with!!! Initially I was going to do white, but since I have the solid black backing it might show, ummm, my mistakes too much!!! Maybe black??? But, then it might be too contrasting on the red and white middle section....Red gives me the same issue on the back....see my problem?

I don't even know how I'm going to quilt yet! There's lots of strips and little squares. So stitching in the ditch will take FOREVER. I might do a meandering pattern or a maze starting from the center. Not sure what it's called, but the one where you just go around and around getting larger and larger squares as you go. "Maze" lol. (Keep in mind I've never done either one of these before). I've done stitch in the ditch and the one where you sew a straight line on each side of the ditch. That's it. Newbie, newbie, newbie.

What do you think?

ckcowl

you could use black in your bobbin, white or red in the center part- then switch to black for the outer borders.
when doing stitch in the ditch you do not have to stitch on every one...you could (pick & choose) which ditches to stitch- keeping your quilting to the specifications of the chosen batting (some batts need to be quilted every 2"-4", others allow up to 10" between quilting lines- as long as you follow those guidelines you can choose any (ditches) that fit in your plan- allowing you to skip a few- maybe outline certain portions of blocks-
a picture would help us help you choose some quilting options.

mrsbudryzer

This is it. Oh!!! Black bobbin for the bottom!!!!! Brilliant!

Quiltngolfer

I made a red, white, and blue quilt. I quilted it with a veriegated red, white, and blue thread. It looked really good.

toolazy

Gosh, that's pretty! I like the idea of black (or even burgundy) for the bobbin thread. I would probably use red for the top but you could use most any color!

MartiMorga

I agree, black bobbin and using either red or white for top. Good looking quilt, I am sure whatever you choose will only make it prettier.

Tartan

I would use a red/ white varigated thread. Are you going to use your walking foot or your FMQ foot to quilt it? If you are going to FMQ it, I recommend using the same thread in the top and bottom. It can be difficult to get a perfectly balance stitch without some pookies showing up when using 2 different colours of thread.

sew4nin

I use variegated thread when I am afraid my mistakes will show up too much. It hides a lot of boo boos. I'm not sure I would like it for quilting in straight lines, but it looks great when using anything that is curvy like meandering or loops. Maybe one day my quilting will look good enough that I want to have every stitch show

Buckeye Rose

I vote for the black bobbin and a red or white on top, either would look great. With all the straight lines in the quilt, I would try for a quilting pattern with something curvy....a simple meander/stipple would look great and break up the straight lines. Good Luck and have fun quilting!

mrsbudryzer

Thank you!!! My daughter, age 9, actually helped me with this!!! I sewed up all the jelly roll strips and when she got home from school, she helped with all the little black and white boxes...then, just last night we were working on cutting the black border fabric and sewing it on. So, this thing isn't all lined up and perfect, but she can say she helped doing it which I think is pretty darn awesome!!!

Thanks for all your help! I think I'm going to go with black on the bottom and white on the top. As for the actual quilting, I'll be using a walking foot and am not really sure what I'll do yet....maybe meandering since I've just never tried it before I could probably get her to help me with it later and if it doesn't, uh, look right....well, a 9 year old did it!!! lol I'm terrible!