13 Sep Square the Circle Quilt
I was given the opportunity to play with this amazing Fat Quarter bundle of Wild at Heart fabric by Riley Blake Designs. I absolutely adore the wilderness-themed illustrations and text and I have long wanted to make a red and black quilt so I knew it was a perfect fit for me! I didn’t have a plan in mind at first but I knew I wanted to show off the gorgeous prints, especially those luscious reds! After playing around on my computer, I came up with a rough plan (you’ll see how that plan evolved below).
I knew I wanted to incorporate some nice large circle blocks. Not drunkard’s path circles though — I wanted the full deal! I made myself some circle and background templates and using some scraps I tested it out to see if I could make a full circle without driving myself crazy. It worked!
Fast forward to me chopping up all my red printed fabric into circles along with a pile of white backgrounds. I made 2 blocks out of of each of the red fabrics in the bundle plus some half-circles for the edges and drunkard’s path (quarter circles) for the corners. I love the look of my full circle blocks!
Next I chopped up all the black prints in the bundle into squares to make a flock of 4‑at-a-time no-waste flying geese (my favourite method!). And lastly, I chopped up all the mid-tone (which I called “greys” in my head) and cream prints into squares to use in between my circle and geese blocks. I was a little concerned that I was going overboard and the quilt was going to be too busy, but what’evs… aren’t we all a little too busy these days?
Disclaimer: I strayed from my original design to simplify it a bit.
After I sewed together all of my circle blocks and flying geese, I arranged all my blocks into rows so I would know what order to sew everything together. I made tall rows (the height of the circles blocks) and short rows with the rest of the flying geese and in-betweener pieces. Here are a few progress photos as I started to sew my rows together.
Once I finished my quilt top, I hung it up to admire it and decide out how to quilt it.
For my backing, I decided on this beautiful Buffalo Check from the Winterberry collection by Riley Blake Designs. It’s a perfect match for the Wild at Heart collection. I impressed myself with my pattern matching skills and was able to line up the gingham perfectly!
I decided to quilt it using the techniques I learned from Melissa Marginet’s book “Edge-to-Edge Walking foot Quilting Designs”. After much internal debate I used Melissa’s hourglass motif throughout my quilt design.
Every time I finish a quilt, I take a peek at the back with some dread and a bit of a grimace to see how many puckers I have created back there during the quilting process. There are usually enough puckers to make me question why I don’t splurge for long-arming services more often. I hate to let them go but also can’t stand the idea of stitch picking all my hard work so I usually just do my best Elsa impression and “Let it Go”! However, this time, I’m happy to report that I only had one single solitary little pucker on the back and I am super duper okay with that! I did a bit of a happy dance to celebrate my progress!
Here’s a close-up of the quilting on the back (pucker not shown 
) …
Here’s the finished Square the Circle quilt!
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.