A Finished Picnic/Whirlygig Quilt!

It's done!!  The Whirlygig Quilt is done! (Except for a quick wash and dry.  That part's easy.)

I decided to keep going with the circular theme and do spirals starting at the center of each pinwheel.

I then filled in between the spirals, copying the curves and getting smaller until the space was filled.

At the edge I also mimicked the spiral to fill in the space, so it looks like little curved pyramids.

The giant center pinwheel.  It was a little tricky quilting this one, at one point I had about 3/4 of the quilt in the throat of my machine. (And I have a Bernina 1008 - not a big throat!)

The pinwheels:

Pink - I love these fabrics.  The watermelon seeds and the pink hexagons! 

Supposed to be yellow - didn't find any bright yellows I liked at the store (the binding was bought later) .  Love the darker pattern, though, circles that make diamonds.

Purple - Love the contrast with the hard lines of the darker purple and the organic lines/seeds of the lighter.

Orange - Again, very geometric lighter and more organic dark pattern

Green - love the light, the random almost scribbled cross hatch.

Red - probably my favorite fabric is the light red.  I don't know why, but red is the hardest color to shop for.  It took forever to find ones that I felt were really red (and not maroon or what not) and not just polka dot or gingham.  Why is it so hard?

But look how pretty the flowers are! I know it's mostly white.  But it's my favorite. 

Blue - The darker pattern was probably a little too large for this, but it was the best color, so it worked out just fine!

This was supposed to be a slightly greener yellow - I love the lighter pattern.

Sneak peak at the back!

TA DAH! This pattern was so cool to me, and I didn't have a lot of green on the front and it's meant to be a picnic quilt, so it's good to be green - grass stains will be slightly less noticeable!  I just think the pattern's so cool.  From far away it looks more like flowers...

But closer in it looks more like interconnected rings.  So fun!  And yes, I took a picture of where my quilting was poorly done, because I'm ok with it!  It's the trouble with doing spirals.  This is where the two spirals met and so the fabric was being pulled in opposite directions.  Live and learn!

The spiral from the back.  I just used white quilting thread on the back. 

And then it was bound - I used the same fabric as the dark orange in the giant center pin, except I did it in bright yellow.  I thought in the sea of blue the quilt needed a hard, wide binding.  It's a double folded binding that I cut at 4", so the finished width is just a little under one inch.  And it's cut on the bias as well, so it could go around the curve.

I machine stitched the binding onto the front with the lovely walking foot my husband got me for my birthday.  And then my brain exploded and I decided I wanted to hand stitch the binding on the back.  It went quicker than I thought.  A few hours on Saturday afternoon/Sunday morning while my husband was out of town.  Not bad for approximately 18 feet of bias binding. 

This is also a gift, so the H is us, the B is the recipients, because we like them a lot!

I just love the circles/flowers!  And I love that I'm done!  I hope you love this quilt.  I do.

See you soon!

(...with another quilt project?)

I live!!! And I Quilt!!!

I know, you probably thought I died.  Looking at my arm, I think it's starting to die!  I match my pj's at least!  That's 2 days after a little blood draw.  Not donating, just some regular small vial of blood for testing.  I guess I'm just very delicate.

sad bruised arm

But really I'm just super excited!!!!!!  So I had a take home test due on Thursday and I spent practically the entire week working with complex numbers.  Whee!  This weekend, however, I finally did it.  I touched my sewing machine again (and not just to move it out of the way to do math).  I sewed on it.  Not just sewing either.  Quilting!  I am finally quilting my gillywhig quilt!   (Ever notice that quilt and guilt look very similar?  Do I feel guilty for quilting?  NO!)

wonky wiggly spirals

I've got 5 of the smaller pinwheels quilted.  I'm doing spirals starting at the center and moving out.  Normally you would think of doing this quilting pattern with a walking foot.  I don't have one, though, so I'm doing it with my darning foot.  And it is hysterical.  The purple one is my best so far and you can see it's still got fun wiggles and jumps.  It's also a little squarish because I am not marking it in any way.  I'm being free and loving it!

spiral quilting on pinwheel quilt

It's my first free-motion quilting and I'm letting myself be totally free about it.  I am still contemplating.  I wanted to do spirals after I saw this awesome quilt from Jacquie at Tallgrass Prairie Studio.  (Go see it, I love it!!!!)

I love where the spirals cross over each other in her quilting.  My problem is for mine to cross over, I'm off the edge of the quilt.  So I will quilt the rest, stopping at the edges, and then decide if I should quilt partial circles to get the cross overs or just do roundish triangles to fill in the blank sections.  Or just leave totally as is.  We shall see!  I'll show you when I've finished all the pinwheels to get your advice! I'm so excited!  Off to more sewing (because I have 2 days of no hw! YAY!)

See you soon...

(with a hopefully less bruised arm.  It just feels weird)

GillyWhig's Everywhere! a WiP Quilt

This is my GillyWhig Quilt.  I would have called it the WhirlyGig Quilt, but my husband couldn't remember that name.  GillyWhig is what came to his mind.  So GillyWhig it will be called!  (Though he just called it something new - Squirlywiggle. Excuse me, I've been notified that it should be two separate words - Squirly Wiggle.  I like this one a lot.  Looks like I might need to make another quilt!)

It's a round quilt, because I couldn't get those darn 90 degree corners to work!  Well, that's not the only reason, but it's a nice thing to think about!

My husband suggested a pinwheel quilt and I decided I liked the idea, so I found the pinwheel block and created my own design from there.  I like the above pinwheel though, where the lighter color is 2x as large, as opposed to the ones where they're the same size.  This is more like the real whirligiggles.

I/my husband also thought that the wigglewirls were way too pointy, so I used that fancy plate tool to curve off the corners. (Not the ones that met in the center, just at the top of the light triangles.)

I then had to sew curves!! First ever, from what I recall. I used the curved pinwheel as a template for the blue triangle piece.  (It would have been a lot quicker if I had made a real template.  Each one was a little different (darn those plates), so I had to trace each individual blade of the whiggywhirls.  Took much longer.  But it ended eventually!)

Sew those curves! I didn't bother pinning.  There was lots of haphazarding going on, so I was ok w/o pinning and just squaring things up in the end.

The blue end seems a little wonky, just ending in the middle of the side, but with the 1/4 inch seam when I sew it to the blue background, it'll curve nicely into the seam, no odd endings.  I love my rainbow of girlywhigs.

Husband likes the blue and green and purple.  I love the dark orange, red and pink.  (Sorry for the off colors, I'm photographing inside under a yellow bulb at night.)  But that's why there are so many!  So everyone can have a favorite!

I love my pretty rainbow.

What I don't love are blisters.  Like the following blister I got from steam!! Evil steam.

Never have your fingers close to the top of a pot of cooking rice as you take off the lid!  Your finger will blister up and get all shiny and painful!

The only thing I had in the freezer that wouldn't defrost and get all nasty as I sat through a concert that night was a bag of chocolate chips.  They didn't help a great deal with the pain, but they were a tasty treat while I listened to the orchestra!  Chocolate cures everything!

See you soon!

(with fewer injuries, I hope!)