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.

White-on-grey & Grey-on-white

My first post on this quilt, working name presently Whirligiggles, was 1/23/16 where I began it in a class taught by Sandy Klop. A single triangle piece and Y-seams make up a hexagon and secondary star pattern by judicious color placement. The subjects of posts dated 1/27/16, 2/17/16, 2/15/17, 2/22/17, 2/28/17, 3/7/17, and 11/23/17 were assembly, color arranging, and prep for FMQ. My most recent posts were on 8/23/19, 9/5/19, 9/8/19, and 9/9/19 in which I discussed FMQ of the red/blue/green star blocks. The white and grey hexagons still needed FMQ and so I have resurrected this quilt again six months later. The white/grey FMQ is th topic of this post. I am bound and determined to finish Whirligiggles in 2020. Some projects hang around so long that their appeal fades. Twelve posts on one quilt - so far- is excessive, even for me. (This post is number thirteen.) Initial enthusiasm has given way to the irked goal of just finishing the @#$%^ thing.

From the previous photo I counted sixteen full-whirligigs in the central area and four ⅔-whirligigs on the top and bottom edges; half have gray blades with a white background and half have white blades with a gray background. I contemplated for quite a while on the FMQ pattern. My goal was to project a sense of rotation and to try to avoid stitching in the lumpy intersection of many seams. My points from piecing met precisely but no matter how much attention I paid to pressing direction, or how hard I steamed them, I could not flatten those bumps. I printed photos of typical hexagons and slid them in plastic page protectors. Using dry erase markers I tried out different patterns. This first pair did, to a small degree, convey rotation like air streams flowing from the rear edges of the blades. The one on the left seemed too angular but I did like the small loops within the gray blades. The one on the right had more rounded shapes but seemed very busy. If that was air flow at the pointed rear edge of the blades, it was extremely turbulent.

In the next pair, I kept with softer, less angular shapes. On the left I tried out arches or single bracket type loops in the background and a few spirals or loops in the blades themselves. It did not appeal. On the right I tried parallel lines or lazy-L loops in the blades and single bracket type loops in the background. I liked the loop combination.

I then laid the sheet protector over a full size block and practiced the pattern. I was comfortable with lazy-L loops, but those bracket-type loops were difficult for me to execute. I decided that they were a variation of my own that I would refer to as lopsided loops and convince myself they were "organic" and "endearing". In a matching thread color their imperfect design feature would not be so noticeable. A rule of thumb I had heard was that the areas of the quilt intended to be emphasized and stand out should be quilted less densely and those intended to recede, like a background for example, should be quilted more densely. That was not the case in the patterns I chose. It was actually the opposite of that which would cause the blades to be dominant. But I attempted to compensate with color.

I used contrasting grey thread on the white bladed hexagons. It was prominent on the white blades and blended into the gray of the background. That is a good thing since my lopsided loops are not too skillfully implemented. Maybe I will get better by the reverse colored hexagons.  This photo is of one of the white-bladed ⅔-whirligigs, still under the foot of my Sweet Sixteen Handi Quilter.

On the grey blades with white background I used white thread. The white does not stand out as much on the grey blades which is unfortunate, especially since I thought I did a good job with those lazy-L loops. My lopsided loops on the white background, which I thought would blend in, stand out more than the Lazy-L loops in the blades. I kept trying to find registration points on which I could focus to orient and size the loops. I did improve with practice but not to the extent I would have liked. I worked around the whirligig in a clockwise fashion FMQing a blade triangle and then FMQing two background triangles.

The two hexagon variations are shown in the next photo. Notice one spins clockwise and the other spins counter clockwise. I found I could quilt the lazy-L loops in either direction with equal dexterity but one direction of the lopsided loops was usually more lopsided in my execution. Nothing much shows up on grey. That should be my takeaway from this quilt. I should make all future quilts in grey and shades of grey since that way I do not need to fret over my invisible FMQ patterns.

The title of this post is White-on-grey & Grey-on-white. The American English spelling is grey. The British English spelling is grey. Both are correct but for some reason the grey spelling looks better to me and it is what flows naturally off my American fingertips as I type. The post title reminded me of a joke.

An adventurer was out in the jungle when he came upon Tarzan. He was painting white stripes on black zebras and black stripes on white zebras. Although curious, the explorer returned home. A year later he came back. Again he finds Tarzan in the jungle. He’s painting white stripes on black zebras and black stripes on white zebras. Every year the explorer returns and every year it is the same scene. Finally he grabs Tarzan and says: “every time I come here you are painting white stripes on black zebras, black stripes on white zebras...What does it mean???”
“Well,” he said “Tarzan stripes forever.” 🇺🇸

The next photo shows my FMQ on the white/grey hexagons and my FMQ on the red/blue/green stars. Hardly shows up, right? I certainly do need to stop agonizing so much over this FMQ stuff since its visibility, or lack thereof, is hardly worth the worry. FMQ is finished. Yay! Next step is my label and binding. Ah, yes... yet another post. Maybe number fourteen will be my final.