Cranky Quilt

There is nothing like doing a project backwards and nothing like diving in without thinking things out. Sometimes I am so eager to get a glimpse of a final result, though, that I put the cart before the horse. Then again, it seems that it doesn’t matter how long we are quilters, there is always something new to learn, and there are always unexpected bumps in the road for us to gracefully overcome.
Case in point: I love the randomly placed concentric circles of quilting on my Vivid Imagination quilt but should have done a lot of things prior to beginning those circles to make the job a whole lot easier.



The first thing would have been to spray baste this quilt as well as pin baste it. The quilt is large--over 80 inches in length and width—and the layers tend to shift with the added weight. The majority of the pieces in this quilt also have two sides cut diagonally across the weave of the fabric, so they stretch and distort easily underneath the walking foot.

Certainly a stabilizing grid of stitching would have also been preferable to immediately starting in with stitching the circles, but at the time, I really was against stitching in the ditch with the exception of anchoring the two borders. After much thought, I have chosen to add a gently curving grid over the interior surface of the quilt, which will have the added benefit of shooting a arc or two through the open middles of my randomly placed circles.

Below you can see one of my planning lines.



I have found that spray starching and pressing a specific portion of my work prior to my quilting it has a lot of benefits. It smooths the layers of the quilt sandwich and allows the walking foot to move over the surface without so much drag. That does require that I temporarily remove some of the pin basting so that I can get the area pressed nice and flat.

My friend, Wendy, has introduced me to Dee’s Best Press and has me very impressed. It doesn’t leave the flaky residue like traditional spray starches.



The smooth surface also makes it easier to draw planning lines. Once my planning line is drawn, I replace my pin basting on both sides of the line, going with the grain of the fabric and square seams.

Here is my plastic template and the various marking tools I have used on this quilt. The variety of fabric colors has required that I use several different types and colors of disappearing markers and chalks to make the lines visible. I made the template myself from a gridded piece of transparent plastic.



A slow and tedious process to be sure, but I think the remainder of the circles will go a little easier with the support of the stitched grid lines.

Quilting is definitely not for sissies!