Spooky and Sweet Completion

In my post for 9/20/24 I discussed my cutting and piecing for Spooky & Sweet, a four-week quilt-a-long project sponsored by the Fat Quarter Shop with free pdf pattern downloads and online tutorials. This blog post addresses the quilting, labeling, and binding the top I pieced. The first challenge I faced was the dreaded phrase "quilt as desired". The image at the Fat Quarter Shop website shows an all over quilting pattern with computerized ghost motifs.  After a bit of study I could figure out the quilting path — up the left side of ghost, detour at the top of his head to insert two eyes, come down the right side of the ghost, detour to insert a star, complete ghost bottom, then meander off to repeat the motif inserting a star along the way. I have a sit down Handi-Quilter Sweet Sixteen which is not computerized nor does it have pantograph capability. Ghost motifs would fit well with a Halloween theme but the entire top is a witchy ghost and a vampire ghost so quilted ghosts are not a necessity. Yes, this design could be quilted free-hand, but I doubted my skill level to carry that out without a ton of practice. I opted instead for a pattern more controlled and less free form. I do not do well with too much two-dimensional freedom. 

I chose to do some wavy ruler work using a Hand-Quilter F wavelength template. It has a wavelength of 4" and a choice of a .75" or 1.5" depth. I decided the shallower depth would be better and needed to settle on an appropriate distance between the waves. I sketched some options with paper and pencil and then auditioned two down-selected spacings on clear plastic page protectors, deciding I preferred the larger vertical spacing. Larger spacing also means fewer waves and less work. The upper group is spaced 0.75" apart and the lower grouping is 1.5" apart. I quilted the waves starting at the bottom and worked my way upward. The blue masking tape helped me determine how far up to move the ruler between rows. The large dips of the lower ruler edge helped me center each wave above the one beneath it. The gridlines on the ruler served as a reminder to keep the waves orthogonal to the piecing.

  

I considered a gray variegated thread but instead went with a pale gray thread. Too much variation in the quilting lines I thought might distract from the pieced characters and stars. It took four or five hours to work my way up from the bottom of the 30½" x 34½" quilt. I did it in two sittings, one in the evening and finishing up the rest the next morning. Fortunately I had only a few glitches due to slips of the ruler but I could move on and pick them out later. The following photos are close-ups of the wavy quilt lines.

Two embroidered grosgrain labels sit on the bottom corners. The name Spooky and Sweet was too long and my Pfaff does not have the "&" symbol to allow shortening the name to Spooky & Sweet. For brevity the name became Spooky_Sweet.

The overall waves gave a pleasing appearance on the front. The pale gray blended in well with the white faces and was not distracting; that initial concern of mine was luckily not realized.

When I turned Spooky_Sweet over to look at the back I was bemused. The first thought that struck me was that it looked like one of those pads put on furniture to keep it from scratching during a move. Perhaps I should have named this quilt U-Haul!