Whirligiggles Completion

In my previous post on 3/19/20 I explained how long this quilt, Whirligiggles, has been in the making – four years and fourteen posts. This post is number 14. The post for 2/22/17 explains my name choice as follows:

The grey and white neutral pinwheels make me think of a whirligig so the term is appropriate. But why the giggles? The brightly colored stripes, checks, swirls, polka dots, and squiggles fabrics that I chose for the star hexagons are frivolous enough they make me giggle. Hence Whirligiggles.

Now that it is finally completed and ready for deployment in my living room I truly can giggle. For a while there I recall I was cussing more than giggling. Being restricted to home because of social distancing due to the coronavirus was the final incentive. I am fortunate to not be ill. It took me a couple days to make the grosgrain labels and put on the two-tone ¼" thin binding. Here is a sneak peak at one corner of the completed quilt and what follows is my process of the final few steps I went through to get to the finish line.

At first I could not find the right color grosgrain ribbon in my stash for the name and date labels which were to go on the grey backing of the quilt, yet I was convinced that I must have basic white somewhere. My grosgrain ribbon stash was scattered in several containers and not wound neatly so I took the time to consolidate and organize it all. Guess what I found? I uncovered a piece of white grosgrain ribbon long enough for two labels, with extra inches for a spare which I goofed and cut too short! As a bonus I now have nice tidy ribbon selection. Small lengths are coiled and secured with scotch tape then gathered in the ziplock bag that will go in one of the train cases. I now have all my quilt label options gathered together and separated from the narrow grosgrain ribbons I use for Christmas ornament hanging loops. Cleaning up messes previous ignored or put off is one of the perks of staying at home more. However, just because I am home more does not mean I am less distracted from the project at hand but hey, the side effects are a plus.

Here are the labels before being secured under the binding. The placement of these labels deviates from my norm since this quilt has two zigzag edges and no right angle corners to place the label. I spanned one of the points at either end of the bottom zigzag edge for each label. 

Since Whirligiggles has no sashing border, I needed a narrow binding to cover only the edge seam allowances and avoid chopping off the points of pinwheels and stars. Also, since the perimeter of this quilt was over 7½ yards, I did not want to stitch the binding to the back side by hand. I used Susie's Magic Binding approach – so I could machine stitch in the ditch of the lime green flange – changing the dimensions to be narrower. My calculations showed that I needed to cut the dark blue 1" wide and the lime green 1¼" wide so when joined along their length with a ¼" seam they would result in a 1¾" wide strip. For French double thickness ¼" binding, this calculation checks: 6 x ¼" binding + 2 x ⅛" flange strip.  To be certain that theory worked in practice, I sewed a small section along a practice sandwich. It worked. Using a stitch in the ditch specialty pressure foot also helped immensely to keep me in that groove between the lime green and dark blue.

The labels once attached and captured beneath the binding look like this. The two corners of the quilt are folded back to be next to each other in the photo so I can show both labels at the same time and the backing fabric. It was challenging for me with the narrow binding width and the 60° in-and-out angles. The non-right angles were a new skill for me but I just took my time attaching that skinny binding, taking frequent breaks, using an awl to hold the corner folds in place and inching along. I did not succeed 100% at keeping on lime green flange of the binding, but I would still give myself a grade of A.

A bound zigzag edge and a bound straight edge of the quilt are shown in the next two photos.

My husband is holding Whirligiggles outdoors in our back yard, showing both the front and the back. The finished dimensions are 74" tall by 56" wide. I am fortunate my husband is over 6 ft tall and has a wide arm span.

Here are closeups of the front and the back.

Finally! Whirligiggles is on the wing chair in my living room. I am linking up to Cooking Up Quilts's Main Crush Monday #169 to share my finish.