Oh. My. Gosh. This quilt took so much effort. But it was so worth it. I got the idea from a sewing conference. Then I got the idea to do the same thing on a large scale.
I liked the concept of the color bleeding over and making the circles look complete. I just had to figure out the logistics on a large scale. So I put together a mock-up.
This is my paint version of the front and back.
I told grandma and she sent me these few fabrics to start with.
So I found the same fabric line at a local quilting shop here. So I got the other 22 fabrics I needed. 30 fabrics and 37.5 yards of fabric.
The colors worked so well together. The whole of them made me feel so happy.
Then I cut them into 10" squares and 5" squares. The large squares served as the front and small squares were put together to create the back of each square.
The I laid them out in groups according to light/dark and by row.
It took me 35 hours to put the back blocks together. I laid them each out and put them together each row, lights and darks. It took quite a bit of brain power.
Then I hard to iron each four patch with the seams open. I need a new tool for that now. That was lots of tiny hot work. But no burns!
Then I took my 9" round stencil and traced 240 circles. There was a total of 240 patches. That means I ironed 4,800 inches of open seams. This project took miles of thread too.
These are the backs to the blue squares.
This is all 240 matched up front/back patches.
After tracing all the circles, I sewed around each one. That was 30" around each one. So at this point I had sewn 12,000 inches.
Then I trimmed them all around the edges with some very heavy left handed ginger pinking shears. My thumb was bruised for a while.
After that, I to do the most heart-wrenching part, and cut a 4 inch incision in the whole part of each circle. That was hard. Then I had to turn them all right side out through the cut. I had to stick something in there (the end of a paint brush) to get the rounded seams pushed out as far as they needed to go. Then iron them all into perfect 9" circles. Lots of time at the iron. Are you catching a theme here? Lots of time...
240 circles wrong side out.
240 circles turned right side out.
240 circles ironed right side out and in the correct piles for each row.
I put each circle into rows. light/dark alternating. This is where the logistic part from above was so crucial.
All 15 columns with the right block in the right place with the right patch on back.
After I put each square together along the straight line, the scalloped part then had to be sewn down, creating a flower look.
The middle section.
On the bed.
The whole quilt. My floor isn't quite big enough.
I think I accomplished my goal of having each circle look like it is completed by overlapping. This is where the logistics of the back side came into play. It is actually the back side of the patch next to it folded over it.
The back looks so cool.
37.5 yards of fabric
30 colors
240 squares
4800 inches of ironed open seams
33,800 inches of thread over 16,900 of seams
7,200 inches of pinking shears cut out
240 stenciled circles
Turned into one quilt with 150 hours of sitting at my sewing machine.
One amazing quilt that I love.
Any questions?
