Quilting in Progress

I've made a start on the quilting of my modern log cabin. Following QuiltSue's suggestion that I 'pebbled' the block centres, I played on a practice piece and decided on a sort of curly filler. I then decided to use my lovely coloured threads on the hand-dyed fabric shapes. Hmm not sure! Anyway I ploughed on and did some echo quilting on the white background. That done I decided I definitely didn't like the outlining on the coloured section, so that had to go!

I wielded the seam ripper and used a sticky lint roller to remove the threads:

But, as some of you may know, when you unpick you can still see where the stitches were, so how do I get rid of the dotted line of holes?

Here's my tip of the week. Go to an art supplies store or large stationers and buy a refillable brush and fill with water. These are very clever as you can gently squeeze just a little water onto the brush to dampen it. Brush along the line and the holes start to disappear. I knew some of that arty stuff I bought for City and Guilds would come in handy sometime! 

Next gently press the fabric with a warm iron and if you can still see some holes, repeat the brushing and pressing:

Hey Presto! Just about all gone. Now back to the machine and I decided a bit of stitch in the ditch would finish the block nicely.

There, that's better! I want these bright coloured shapes to stand out and I prefer them now without the stitching breaking them up. In fact if I make similar blocks in future I might add some trapunto to raise them up more. Oh dear! I'm never completely satisfied and I'm always thinking my quilts could be better if..........Does anyone else have that problem?

 Ware you working on at the moment? If you would like to do a guest blog about your quilts please leave a comment and I'll send you an invite!

Hazel