"Free" motion?

I decided that those pesky empty squares in the middle of each block needed to be filled with something.

Since I have been calling the not-star block the "Ring" block, I thought its circularity would be enhanced with a circle in the middle. I looked around the kitchen for a can or something the right size (not going out to the edges so as to be more visible), and came up with a pill bottle. I drew around it with one of those blue pens that have ink that disappears in water. Then I "free" motion quilted on the circles. Lots of stops and starts as the circles are far from each other.

I decided on a square for the middle of the Star blocks, but how to make a square square in "free" motion?

I decided to cut a recipe card to what looked like the right size square, and then try to follow around the edge of it. First I found that a regular glass headed pin was TOO long, and caught on the darning foot and messed everything up. So I found a short pin that had come in a recent new dress shirt for Charlie. That worked fine!

I sewed the card to the quilt a couple of times going around the corners, and some of the straight lines weren't very straight. But I got better as I went along.

Now I only have one quarter of the quilt left. Tomorrow I will layer that and pin it and stitch in the ditch, and do these circles and squares. Then sew the last pieces together. After that I'll think about borders.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Decisions about quilting finished

Coffee time with Ray and Dianne

My sweetie pie