Pinwheels all done!

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Finally! And the pictures uploaded!

As I said in previous entires, I wanted to give the illusion of movement for the pinwheels and I think I got it here.

Note how I used a swooping curve in the plain triangles and left the print areas alone. I knew I wanted them puffy and raised, so I left them.

I went with a heavy back and forth quilting in all the sashing to flatten it and emphasize the pinwheels. I think I nailed it.

I’m also really happy with the 3 kinds of gingham used in the quilt.

The other thing I did slightly differently, was early on in my quilting process I swapped out my usual stitch regular automated foot and just went with the free motion or darning foot instead.

I think I want to write more about that, so someone looking at the Bernina stitch regulator will have some details.

I was away so let’s talk binding

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Ooops! I went away on a business trip and all the pre-trip preparations and post-trip recovery meant no real sewing for a while.

I did baste a pile of baby quilts I had waiting, plus for two I decided to not bind them and sew together using what I call the pillow case method. The one where you place the back and front right sides together with the batting, sew around, leave a hole for turning and then turn right side out.

For the pinwheel quilt, I had a yard or so of red gingham I wanted to use for binding, which meant I had to make it myself. But I was short on time, so I hunted down an even faster method for making binding. Following this tutorial, I did not even have to mark the strips or even use my binding maker.

I also machine sewed the binding on by sewing it to the back first, then flipping the binding over to the right side and stitching it down. Repositioning my needle to the far left also helped with this step.

I’d have a picture to show you, but alas – my trip wore out my camera batteries and I forgot all about it, os right now my batteries are charging.

I think my brain batteries need charging too. 😉

And yes – I still need to post exactly how I quilted the pinwheels! I’m happy with how it turned out. I guess I did squeeze in time to actually quilt it, but not enough time to blog it.

So – how do you bind your quilts? All the same way? Different ways depending on your mood or the quilt?