Quilt with circles

Last week went by so fast when I tried to recall it on Thursday; it was simply one big blur.  That, however, meant that I’ve been busy which is much better than being bored.

On Wednesday I received 3 quilts from the same quilter and I chose to start with the largest one which had circular applique as the focal point.  These circles basically gave me a guideline on what motifs I should use.

To make the applique circles pop I quilted a dense paisley echo around the circle and I think it turned out well.

For the squares in between, I stuck to a string circle motif alternating the direction.

The only different motif came in the blue border where I followed the printed lines on the fabric to make a beadboard or piano key border.  In the brown skinny border, I still kept to the string circles.

For the outer border, I repeated the paisley echo just in a larger scale.

The wonderful part about this was that the quilter gave me a multi-coloured backing which allowed me to change the top threads to match her fabric as closely as possible without having to worry about thread pokies on the back and having to constantly adjust the tension.

We had all the kids and grandbabies over on Saturday, so while hubby played golf Sunday, I took a day off, stayed in my PJ’s and got educated with some Vimeo long arm quilting videos.

This quilt finished at 77” x 77” and took 4 hours 25 minutes actual stitching time. This should be doubled to get the idea of the time spent behind the frame, loading, snipping thread, changing bobbins and advancing the quilt.  I use the timer on my machine to get actual stitching time but have used both this and the timer on my cell phone to compare.  No wonder quilters wonder why someone with a long-arm cannot finish their quilt the same day.