FMQ on Quilt for Sixth Grandchild

After piecing my backing, I cut out my batting from the last of my roll of 100% bamboo batting. I guess I really did make more quilts than I realized. The batting roll started out 96" wide and 10 yards long. Every time I cut off a section for a quilt I mark it on the label. Then I mark the remnant dimensions on a slip of paper and taped it on the random size rectangular pieces. These I store in plastic bins for use on smaller projects. From the dates on this tag, I learned that I consume a roll of batting per year.

I got out my reliable, easy to use Odif 505 temporary adhesive to spray baste. I tape the backing to the floor and layer first the batting and then the top above as a sandwich, smoothing out any wrinkles. Then I peel back the layers, half at a time and proceed to spray each side of the batting. I learned from an instructional video that it is more effective to spray the batting rather than the top fabric or backing fabric. I protect my hardwood floor from overspray during the process with pillowcases that I then toss in the wash afterward. I completed the spray basting on January 25, when Irene was two weeks old.

 

On to the FMQ. I started four days later with the sashing strips because I knew what I wanted to do in them. I knew I wanted pink circles and worked up a spacing layout in a PowerPoint file for an 8 ½" square with 2" sashing on all four sides. In the sashing were eight 1 ¼" circles on each side nested between parallel ⅜" channels.

 

I put in the ⅜" side channels using Angela Walter's ruler Slim and started my first "L" of circles, using HQ's Swiss Cheese template for 1 ¼" circles. The circles kissed perfectly in the corner as planned. So far, so good. I was quite pleased. That pink really did liven up the beige.

What I realized, as I proceeded to FMQ more of the bottom half of the quilt, was that the squares were offset and although some sides were 12 ½" long, others were only 10 ½" long. I needed to rethink my circle spacing. I noticed my error when the corners of some of the squares had some overlapping circles and some had tangent circles. Before doing the top half, I figured how to compensate for the length difference by eliminating two 1 ¼" circles and inserting a smaller circle ¾" circle midway in their stead in a line of six 1 ¼ circles. Doing so allows all corners to have kissing circles, not overlapping. The top half is shown with the circles correctly sized an spaced. I will admit, sometimes those kissing circles do overlap just a bit like a Venn diagram, but as long as they are symmetric about the diagonal and not overlapping in some random offset position, I am content.

I marked lines in the bottom half that were "wrong" with safety pins; I needed to pick out the stitches of some of the circles in the 10" long sashing sections. I have heard that to become better at quilting you should quilt; picking out only makes you better at picking out. I could not leave it as is though. Since the circles are formed by circling a once-and-a-half times within the template, half of each circle has been double stitched. It took me 10 minutes per circle to remove the rogue ones. I luckily had to pick out only half a row of circles, four instead of all eight. I put on some music and let my thoughts wander as I picked away. It took me four sittings of a little over one hour each, but I persevered.

I use masking tape with tape measure markings to help me with even spacing. I needed to have two strips: one for 12" sashing with eight 1 ¼" circles and and one for 10" sashing with six 1 ¼" circles and a central ¾" circle. The results are much improved but they are not pristine. I do not need to worry about angering any gods with perfection.

Now I moved on to FMQ within the squares themselves. The circle template work was so intense I needed to take a break by doing more freehand stitching. I also choose a more subtle thread color, a pale yellow, because I did want to detract from the cute prints. I decided to do loop-de-loop in each birds-on-a-wire section. In the other sections I was going to do hearts or a four-petal motif. Initially I was going to do the wide center of a block in hearts, and the narrow sides of a block in the four-petal motif. Then I changed my mind. I reasoned that area size should not determine the quilt pattern; rather the scale of the fabric prints should dictate. Really whimsical prints deserved an open pattern of hearts, revealing more of the print. Less interesting mini-florals, dots, or stripes would be covered in the four-petal motif, a denser pattern with more texture. I made myself a diagram to remember what would go where once I'd decided. The script e's are for the loop-de-loop lines. The spiky suns stood for the four-petal motif, and the hearts, logically stood for hearts.

The following photo shows a sample of all three FMQ patterns used within the blocks: four-petal motif in the coral mini floral, open hearts in the animal critter scenes of white or aqua, and loop-de-loops between the birdies on a wire. After the overview photo is a closeup of each pattern.

The hearts were the motifs I did last and although they were the least dense, they were the pattern I found most difficult. I made myself paper templates in PowerPoint, oriented both in horizontal rows and vertical columns, and used a ByAnnie Stiletto to poke holes at key points. I made faint pencils dots on the  quilt top through each hole as registry marks so I could space out the hearts evenly and make them uniform in size.

In the next photo heart rows are stitched in the aqua print and heart columns are stitched in the coral print. The hearts are not as uniform as if they'd been computer guided; rather they look as if they could have been drawn by a somewhat steady-handed child. I deem this style acceptable for a baby quilt. Once again, there is no perfection here to anger the gods. I believe the politically favored term in the quilting community for non-uniformity is "organic".

My last region to FMQ was the 4 ½" borders. I decided to brave ruler use once again, this time with a classic clamshell pattern and this HandiQuilter ruler. The length of the inner side of the outer border measured 41 ½" so, if I finagled a bit, I could fit fourteen 3" clamshells along an edge. I was pleased with my choice. The ruler work went smoothly and I did no picking out of stitches. Also, the clamshells filled the space nicely without being too dense as seen along one edge. I know the stitching pattern is technically called clamshells, but they look like puffy clouds to me floating along. For a baby quilt that is a better fairy-tale type way to imagine them.

I still need to figure out what to do in the corners since clamshells do not round a bend very well. I considered a four petal motif or heart in each corner but they would be larger than those in the body itself and did not seem to flow. I plunked a corner photo into PowerPoint and tried overlaying different combinations of circles and straight lines. On the left in the first pair of photos is a plain corner. I had considered terminating the outer row of clamshells with a half shell but decided to hold off. The end seemed too abrupt. In the right photo I considered some 1 ¼" circles , the same size as in the inner sashing, but I dreaded the thought of more picking out should I space them incorrectly. 

On the left in the second pair of photos, straight lines on a diagonal into the corner would be fairly easy to do but nothing else in the quilt was on the diagonal and I felt it looked out of place. On the right, I explored easily implemented straight lines again but this time at right angles, following the rectangular focus of the rest of the quilt. This was better than straight lines at a diagonal but then how far along the edge should I continue them?

Next up was a design that incorporated more circular stitching in the corners. Instead of terminating the outer row of clamshells mid-shell, I proposed having two complete shells meet. They filled in the corner as shown in the left photo. I delayed filling in additional straight lines as in the right photo until deciding if it needed it. Ultimately I chose to leave the outermost corner area unstitched pending further consideration. Once the ⅜" binding was folded over in place, there would be less blank area remaining.

When I put in the two extra corner clamshells I used a piece of masking tape to help me be sure they intersected along a corner diagonal. They joined up very well. I could have saved myself a fair amount of time restarting and stopping had I been decisive enough about how I was going to handle the corners from the start. But isn't that always the case?

Started on January 27 and ended on February 9, the FMQ took me two weeks. For comparison, the assembly took a few days. I am still on the learning curve for my FMQ, plus I need lots of pause time to make decisions, and to humor my stubbornness to pick out what I am not satisfied with. I've adopted the motto on the foil wrapper from a DOVE® Promises Milk Chocolate taped on the wall of my sewing room, "Don't stop until you're proud." (It is this chocolate that got me in trouble in my previous post dated 2/11/21.) I still have the binding and labels to go.

After adding the binding on the quilt, I did decide to add something in those corners. A single circle would do the trick. I cut out some pieces of paper to get a feel for what size - either 1 ¼" circle like most of them or ¾" circles like the central substitutions on the shorter sashing sections. The larger circle seemed to dominate and so I put only one smaller one in each corner to fill the awkwardly empty spaces.

Adding those circles is equivalent to dotting my i's and crossing my t's when I write something. I can exhale with a sense of satisfaction. It is like the cherry on top! This quilt will need one more post for naming, labeling, and photography of the completed quilt.