Lesson Learned: Busy Fabrics Don't Need Fancy Quilting

I did some straight-line quilting on bags I made a couple of weeks ago (I gave them away before it occurred to me I should take pictures of them). I thought I would try it again on a bag I made yesterday, but with a diamond pattern to trace the design.



It was good practice, but as I discovered, quilting isn't very visible on a busy fabric like this. It's nice for adding a little structure, but simple straight lines would have been sufficient.

Once I sewed and pressed the bag, you couldn't really see any quilting at all. But it turned out nicely, nevertheless.

I only recently discovered that "quilting" is just one part of making a quilt, and refers to the stitching (plain or fancy) you do all over the top of the quilt to secure all the layers together. The other part of quilt making is "piecing," or the process of sewing together the many pieces of fabric that make up the top of the quilt.