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The second Dahlia panel is finished, and the colors on this one are so vibrant!  The colorway is called Sunset.  I didn’t have any threads to match the intense colors on this panel, so I went to Beginnings and purchased four Floriani embroidery threads in precisely matched colors.

It was easy to find a good match with the display of over 300 shades and gradations to choose from.  These threads are strong enough for high speed embroidery machines, so I thought they would be fine for the longarm, and they were.  The threads stitched beautifully without breaking.

I reviewed ...

The Dahlia panel quilt is finished, and now hanging up.  I did the back differently than usual as this wall hanging is too large for the quilt clips I have in the den.  I have a curtain rod with ring clips for hanging quilts in my sewing space, but for this one, I wanted to show you another method that works anywhere.

Start with a large strip of doubled fabric.  This one is 2-1/2-inches wide, with two sewn together so I could use the last bits of the fabric from the backing and binding.  You could use a five-inch ...

The quilting on this panel was a challenge in more ways than one.  When we left off here, the top section was done, and the machine was acting up.  Thanks to a lot of help from both the excellent tech guy at A1, Randy, and My Sweet Babboo, the machine is now humming along and behaving again.

For the next petal, I planned a scallop shell with three lines around the outer edge.  I didn’t get them done smoothly, and there are some bad wobbles in the lines.

This little clam shell fill was pretty easy.  Once I got ...

Last week I began quilting the dahlia panel, putting different motifs in each petal.  I had hoped to be done with this by now, but the longarm machine had other plans.  Here is where we left off, with the top section nicely under way.

On this petal, I planned a curved cross hatch with double lines.  To mark the quilting lines, I used a Clover White Chaco Liner, a chalk lining tool that makes a nice thin line, and my curved ruler.

Then, I used the curved ruler as a guide for the hopping foot, following the lines.

Horizontal lines ...