Pinwheel Sampler

WARNING!  This post is super photo heavy.

I started quilting this quilt for my mom several weeks ago.  It took me a while because you know… Christmas happened.  And then my favorite little boy turned two.  TWO!  How did that happen?  Well, anyway… we had to have a party to celebrate and this mama was busy with other things, so this quilt took a while to finish.

Probably didn’t help too much that I had a few tension issues and had to pick a bit of it out.

I like to take sneak peek photos of things I’m working on.  I think it’s kind of fun to see how things progress.  Follow me on instagram if you’d like to see more random photos like these and various other things.

This quilt is a monster.  I didn’t measure it, but I didn’t have a space big enough to lay it out and get a good picture of the whole thing at once, thus the not so great photo above.  I did however take photos of each individual block.  Here’s the 16 blocks that make up the top.

There’s also 9 little pinwheels in the sashing.  See the close-up shots of those below.

I took a few more shots at an angle to give you a better view of the quilting.

In the white negative space I quilted swirls and pebbles.  I tried to quilt three swirls and then three bubbles or pebbles.  It’s harder than you think to keep track of that counting when you are sometimes going to have to skip over to a different location after already quilting one or two swirls.  I think I got pretty close, though.

In the printed fabric I did something different.  Some have these plume feathers (a design borrowed from Angela Walters).

Others have a swirl (also borrowed from Angela).  Others (not shown in a close-up) have squiggles or orange-peels.

The back was fun, too.  It was pieced from different printed and solid flannels.

I love the way the quilting shows up on the solid flannel on the back.

Details:

Size: Huge!  I don’t know the exact dimensions, but Rachel Griffith says it’s somewhere between 65″ & 70″ square.

Pattern: Pinwheel Sampler Quilt-a-long by Rachel Griffith of P.S. I quilt.

Fabric: I want to say the pinwheels are all a layer cake from Kate Spain, but I could be completely wrong on that.  Backing is various flannel pieces.  

Pieced by: Susan MacDonald

Thread: Ivory colored thread from RA in a 40 wt. I believe.

Also, worth noting… this was the first time I used my new open-toe foot.  I loved the added visibility it gave me.  I didn’t like how it would catch on thread that was already quilted.

Happy quilting!

-Jessica