Thank you, Nik!

After lots of steady sewing, I managed to get the Seductive Curves quilt finished for DD to take back with her to Brighton yesterday. Here are DD and DH holding it up in her living room. You can't see the whole thing, but the quilting shows up quite well.

I have my friend, Nik, to thank for that. Recently Nik made a fabulous black and pink quilt, which was beautifully machine quilted in variegated pink thread. I asked her how she managed with all the stopping and starting required, and she said she had a locking stitch on her machine which she had used. I have tried that myself, but often found a little (or large!) thread nest on the back of the quilt. 'Oh, yes,' said Nik, 'I do too. But what's a little thread nest between friends? I'm not entering a competition, and it makes life so much easier.' We could all do with a friend like Nik, I think! So since I had decided to emphasise the curving shapes with the quilting, I decided to take Nik's advice and use my locking stitch. To eliminate the need to turn the quilt, I quilted all the horizontal lines first, and then turned the whole thing and quilted the vertical lines. Lots of stopping and starting was necessary, but it was much more straightforward than going round every shape. Here is the back, and you can see the thread nests. Some are small and some much bigger, but hey, I don't care!

And to finish off with, some pictures of cold, miserable Brighton, and its famous pier. It was just starting to snow, and the wind was cutting through us like a knife.

Here are DD and DH strolling along the pier (they're the second group of people, not the ones with the blue hat and stick!) before we all had a nice hot cup of tea in a little cafe and then went home! I'm glad I manged to meet my deadline, as I've a feeling DD has been rather grateful for its warming properties!