Circle Around

The first quilt blog I started reading was Jaybird Quilts . I fell in love with Julie Herman's Circle Around pattern from the Summer 2010 issue of Quilts & More at about the same time that I read her interview in Quilter's Home. It was the first time I really became aware of the modern quilt movement.

I have finally gotten around to making the Circle Around pattern. I had a few mistakes along the way learning to use the walking foot (which I am now in love with - just when you think it's going to pucker, the sewing fairy busts out her magic, and everything lays flat, and I am a happy woman). I also bought more black and white fabrics than I technically needed.

This has resulted in me having enough extra squares to make a smaller version for the boys.

The bad news is that this plays right in to the big boy's belief that every quilt I make should be for him. The good news is that this will give me a chance to practice the quilting before I get to the big quilt, which I really hope to give as a gift.

More good news...I finished it last night! I was supposed to be doing other chores and working on other projects, but I decided to do just a bit of quilting, and it was going so well that I kept going.

My third finish of the year, and my first for March. Yay!

Now on to those chores I didn't do last night....

(See the original pattern of the quilt on the cover of Quilts and More, Summer 2010 . I did put my own swing on it, which I will discuss when I post the "big quilt.")

Exciting find

I love the look of the pieced backs that are popular these days, so I finally tried it myself a few weeks ago.

It was exhausting! I miscalculated about halfway through, and there were a thousand interruptions (largely of the busy boy three year old persuasion).

I do like the way it looked in the end, but I'm not sure it was worth the extra time it took to get the quilt to the "sandwich-ing" point. It's partially through the quilting phase right now.

Despite my frustrations...I am currently working on a second pieced back. What can I say? The first time may have been a fluke.

One good thing about pieced backs - they usually save money over purchasing one cut of fabric. I haven't gotten in to the habit of purchasing my backing fabric along with everything else (is that what I'm supposed to be doing?), and I don't have a LQS. It can be frustrating to complete a quilt top and be ready to baste and not have any backing fabric.

So, I have been keeping my eye out for alternate backing fabrics. The boys and I made a trip to Target the other day, and I was excited to find a King-sized duvet cover on clearance for $10! That's a lot of fabric. It washed and dried nicely too!

I'm hoping to use half of the duvet cover for a queen-sized quilt for our spare room bed. But first I'll test it on something smaller. Maybe I'll "whip up" something for the boys. The big boy thinks every quilt I make is for him, anyway!