Chemo Chaos Completion

This quilt top has remained dormant since July. The post for 7/5/24 looked at the contrast of the layer cake fabrics from the Bobbins and Bits selection in Sept 2013 by designer Pat Sloan. The post for 7/6/24 displayed the block designs for the layer cake fabrics and explained my choice of the name Chemo Chaos. Then the perfect batik fabric for the backing went on clearance sale at my local quilt shop. It is a whimsical orange batik with stylized ladybug images. There was enough of the backing fabric to use it for my binding as well. I set those glasses on the piece of fabric for scale. In retrospect, probably a ruler would have been a better choice to show scale.

Since the quilt top is 48½" wide, greater than one width of fabric, I needed to add an insert or edging. I placed four remaining 10" squares from the layer cake in a column onto the back interspersed with more ladybug batik. Three of my these leftover squares have words. Batiks do not really have a right and wrong side but I found an exception. I did not notice this detail until they were sewed into a column. I had to remove one and flip it so that the phrases such as MAKE DO AND MEND and  STITCH ON! were not reading backward.

My idea was to have the FMQ accentuate the secondary patterns in top...  small and big diamonds and perhaps that octagon with maybe some smaller squares. I've shown my scribbles in PowerPoint although the actual decision would be finalized in real time. Those four-petal motifs are a go-to pattern of mine so perhaps setting them on point in the bigger diamonds might add interest. How to handle the zig-zag fabric remained an unknown. Maybe a large scale wave at the outer edges... ?

Here is how that center square of sixteen four-petal motifs came out, followed by how one of those orange pointed diamonds looks with four three-leaf motifs in the center bordered by parallel lines.

Quilting this top was a true adventure. I used King Tut 40 weight variegated thread with the recommended #90/14 needle with a side-spooling rather than an end-spooling spindle, and yet the thread periodically shredded and broke, even when loosening the top tension... frustrating to say the least. I muddled through by changing the needle (in case there was a burr or I had installed it incorrectly) and rethreading in case there was something I had overlooked. I then threaded through only two of the three top holes; doing that did not eliminate my breakage but it did reduce it.  I would do a trial on a practice sandwich and all would go fine. Then I'd switched to the quilt top and, not immediately, but eventually, the thread would shred and break once again. Bad thread maybe? Top and backing were batiks, maybe they are tougher? Also twice I managed to catch a corner of the quilt under the quilting area that cost me some remedial tear-out time. Grrr...! Maybe the quilt's feelings are hurt by my proposed name of Chemo Chaos? If so, that moniker is well deserved! 

My envisioned variety of FMQ patterns became less and less ambitious; I just wanted to get it done! I wound up with a combination of parallel lines in the secondary pattern of smaller diamonds and my go-to four petal motif elsewhere. 

I kept the Chemo Chaos name. Here are my grosgrain ribbon labels stitched on the two lower back corners.

The following two images are the front and back of completed Chemo Chaos.

This quilt is a lighthearted reminder of my battles and triumphs with my surprise diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer per my brief 6/13/24 post on the topic. As it says on the back inserts, MAKE DO AND MEND. Yes, indeed!