Quilting maple leaves from the backside

52 Week UFO Challenge - Project #20 - Celebrate Canada quilt

At our retreat in February I put together a sample of the "Our Native Land" quilt from our book "Celebrate Canada".

Celebrate Canada Book

This quilt was super fast and fun to put together and I still just LOVE the Oh Canada fabrics from Northcott. Now that I'm back from my trip, and have a bit of time to spare, I've finally been able to get it quilted!!

I wanted to quilt a maple leaf design on the quilt, so I decided to use a pantograph that I had on hand. I don't often use pantographs for one simple reason - space. My Gammill is located in a long, skinny sun room off the back of our house and when the Gammill is pushed right back, it just barely clears the opposite wall. So standing behind it, to quilt a pantograph is "almost" impossible.

So, I decided to try stitching the pantograph while standing to the left side of the machine. I had to hold the left hand button in my right hand, and use my left hand to help steer by holding onto the body of the machine. By doing this, I was able to keep an eye on the laser pointer as it followed the design on the pantograph.

 The end result turned out AWESOME - although I think I might need to go for a back massage after stitching in that position for the hours that it took to finish the quilt!!

One of the risks of stitching from the back of the machine is that you aren't watching the FRONT of the machine - can you see where I missed stitching a maple leaf???

Luckily, I noticed while the quilt was still on the machine so that I could go back and add the missing leaf. My quilt turned out just lovely and I just LOVE the maple leaf quilting!!

Twenty projects done for my 52 week challenge!! Turns out that quilting maple leaves from the backside isn't so hard after all and I'm so pleased with my quilt.