QUILT-A-LONG FIFTH MONTH – July 2022
QUILT-A-LONG 2022 The Modern Whirligig Quilt
Hooray QALers! This is the last month for our Modern Whirligig Quilt-Along.
By this time, you should have done your improv “blades” for your background blocks.
If you could stand it and not move ahead, this will be the month that you square up all your blocks and start to assemble your Whirligig. (if you couldn’t stand to wait and sewed all your blocks together, you may move ahead to the next paragraph). Make sure your blocks are all a uniform size. This will require careful measuring and trimming. Your finished size may vary depending on how your improv blocks are sewn. After trimming all the blocks to a uniform size, sew them together as noted.
Now that everyone has squared and sewn their blocks together – here are a couple of finishing ideas.
1. You can sew a 2 inch strip all around the outside of your blocks, being careful that you don’t cut off the points to any of your blocks. This makes your Whirligig “float”.
2. Quilt as desired: what does that mean? Well, depending on your design, you can quilt in various ways:
a) You can quilt along all the straight lines. Easy peasy.
b) You can do each section of the colored quilt blocks in a different quilt style, i.e. one can be a meander, one can be straight lines, one can be loops, etc. The easiest way to figure out how to use this technique is to take a picture of your quilt top with your phone and then print it out (several times). You can then draw all over the copy, auditioning different ideas as you go along.
c) Since your quilt is mostly straight lines, you can do a curvy quilt meander. (again, you can audition how that would look using the technique in B above.
d) Here’s a cool pattern if you are used to a LOT of quilting.
And NOW YOU ARE DONE! Super excited and proud for ALL of you!
And as inspiration for your next quilt, I present another Whirligig quilt!
Don’t forget to post your quilt blocks to our Facebook Group and your Instagram page with the hashtag #sfmqgqal2022
Patti