Finished Pinwheel Quilt Top!

Woo hoo!  I have finished the pinwheel baby quilt from my Craftsy class.  This quilt is made of nine blocks, each made with four strip pieced sub-units.  It finishes at about 36 x 36 inches, which is perfect for the little girl I have in mind.  

I found making these blocks entirely meditative as they are chain pieced units of straight lines on a slight diagonal.  Still, when pulled together they have impact.  This was great fun to make, a fab way to play around with Peggy Martin's method of piecing.  I can already see how her strip piecing can be used in my New York Beauty blocks, so I am delighted with how that Craftsy class keeps on giving.

It was a beautifully sunny day when I took these photos.  With the sun, though, comes shadows which make it hard to see the top.  I had to take the very non-artistic option and just toss it on the drive to avoid tree branches.  It is not as pretty of a background, but you can indeed see the top better.  Gotta do what you can, right?  I am surely not going to be the only person in all of Ireland complaining about this spectacular weather!

Can you see how some of the points of the yellow squares are lost in some blocks?  I am not entirely sure why that happened as I was only following the line on the template - there is no place to go wrong really.  It must have been how I trimmed the units?  Or maybe how I joined them together?  I think it will be lost in the quilting and washing so I am surely not going to bother ripping the blocks apart.

So, does it need a border or will I finish it off as it is?  If you are voting border, which fabric do you think I should use?  I was imagining the pink floral as it has bits of the yellow in the center of the flowers, but that is quite a small print and usually I go for larger prints in the border.  Any suggestions from here are totally welcome!

As usual, I had my photographic assistant next to me while taking these photos.  She has been so very happy to spend time rolling grass now that the warm sun is out.  She'd spend all day sunning her belly if I let her, the little cutie.

Pinwheel Quilt Finish

She's done!  My first pinwheel quilt is finished.  I honestly never intended to make this quilt.  You will notice it is not on my Finish Along to-do list (sadly).  This quilt came into being because I won a bit of fabric and found a tutorial I wanted to try...and a little pinwheel quilt was born. 

It was FREEZING while I was out taking these photos.  It was so incredibly windy that I couldn't use my usual clothes line.  I had to lay it out on the grass for the best chance of getting a reasonable photo.  Still, it kept flipping up and fluttering into the front garden!  Yikes!  Sorry it's a bit fuzzy.

It was quilted with straight lines on the diagonal.  You might remember the dreaded fold on the back.  It's now sporting a little appliqué pinwheel that coordinates with one the front.  There she is!  This little pinwheel quilt will be out at the next craft fair looking for a new home.  I hope she makes some family happy.  

Quilt Details

Name - Pinwheel (totally not creative, is it?)

Made For - The shop.
Fabric - All 100% cotton with Kona Bone and prints that I don't know the name of.  They were won at an IPS meeting. The back is Circa 52 and binding from Monaluna (I think).
Thread - Pieced with cotton Aurifil 2600, quilted with a variety of cotton and polyester threads.
Batting - 100% cotton Simply Cotton
Size - Approximately 35x35 inches
Quilting - 1/2 inch on either side of the central seam, then continued echo quilting from that start
Pattern - Made it up as I went along, but I used this method to make pinwheels from the 10 inch blocks.

Pinwheels Quilted...Maybe.

I took a bit of time this past weekend to quilt my little pinwheel top.  In the end, I decided to go with many different colors of thread for quilting, all in a diagonal across the quilt top.  I like the overall effect, giving you something more to look at than just straight lines.  I thought before I trimmed it, I would take a photo or two to show you guys.

It was so windy when I was out there taking the photo that it was nearly impossible to get the whole top AND have it in focus!  So I just laid it all down to take a still photo.  How did I not see my foot in there while I was framing the shot!?!?  Goodness knows.  Anyway, you can see the various yellow, pink, aqua and green threads used for quilting a bit better here.

The back is Circa 52.  Here you can see the quilting a bit more...

All in all, I was quite pleased with myself.  I had this little cutie all quilted and ready to trim.  You see, I wanted a bit of hand work to do this weekend.

But wait...

What's this?...

How did I not see this before?...

NNNNNOOOOO!!!!

Total stinker pot.  Stinker stinker stinker pot.  There's a fold quilted into the back of the quilt.  Its about 3 inches long and quite deep on the one side.  I can get the tip of my finder in there!  (Sorry about the awful orange photos...we're back inside trying to get warm again.)  

Is there any possible way to unpick these few lines of quilting and smooth it out?  Do you guys have any experience here?  Or will I have to unpick a full half of the quilt to smooth it and re-quilt it?  Any suggestions are totally welcome.  Worst case is that I have to unpick half to re-quilt it.  Still gives me something to do by hand I guess :(

Pinwheel Quilt Top

Pinwheels are clearly a classic  block for a reason.  It is incredible how easily they come together, how they can show off a print and how much impact they can have.

Do you remember a little while ago I won eight 10x10 inch squares of fabric?  Well, I tossed in a ninth with a little background Kona and made a small quilt top.

This top is just under 1 meter square, making it really easy to use a single 1 meter x WOF for the back.  I have it layered  now using Pebbles in Pumpkin and am quilting it in straight, diagonal lines.

Sadly, though, I've run out of the thread I was using to quilt.  Just my luck!  If I can find a bit more in town I will quickly finish off this cutie.  It will eventually be for sale in the shop or at our next craft fair.