Looking at it I thought an allover design would be best as I did not feel like stitching in the ditch around all those blocks. Against all better judgement decided to do a Baptist Fan design. Have done this once before on a scrappy quilt...must have forgotten how finicky that can be.
This time though I used a combination of rulers rather than all of the Handiquilter Ring templates for the whole lot. I used my new Amanda Murphy 3in, 5in and 7in circles and then the Handiquilter 9in and 11in. Must say that the circles are definitely easier to hold and manage. The large rings are not that easy to hold stable and alignment is somewhat tricky.
A ruler set that does only Baptist Fans would be probably very useful, however I do not do this design often enough to really justify this.
Made a start...The key to this is really letting go of any kind of perfectionism...you just cannot achieve this. Not sure how difficult this is on a longarm frame machine, but I imagine similarly tricky. On the sit down machine, it is difficult not to slide over a little bit particularly when using those large rings. To counteract this, I frequently stop and adjust my hands, however it is almost impossible to avoid a bit of drifting. As I have done this before, I am not too worried about this as long as my alignment to the to the row underneath is approximately right. The lines itself vary slightly in width, depending how well I aligned the whole thing and whether I drifted over a bit. Again I don't worry too much about it as long as it looks somewhat consistent over the distance.
Sounds all very sloppy, but this is a very forgiving design and when it is all done the eye does not notice those inconsistencies.
Looking good so far. Definitely the right design for this. Stayed mainly on track but I think two of my fans are slightly smaller than the rest by about 1/8in. I do stand back after each row and have a bit of a look whether I stayed on track measuring the height and looking whether the starting points for each fan are lining up with the rows underneath. Will try to fudge the missing 1/8in a bit in the next few rows, however as the piecing is slightly out here and there as well, it will not be noticeable I think. By the way, the wiggly lines you see across the fans is my basting...I do baste my quilts after pinning so that I can get rid of the pins and concentrate on the quilting. It is more work, but I find it easier to quilt undisturbed by pins.
As always really enjoying pushing myself out of my comfort zone a bit, particularly as I am such a perfectionist at heart.
Karin
Your fans look amazing. What a good design for this project. Many antique quilts are quilted with Baptist fans or some variation of the Baptist fan. I quilted it once; but, that was back when I marked the lines and then machine quilted them. (Rulers weren't available!) I'm considering using this design though on a baby quilt. . .I haven't made the baby quilt and I liked how you used circles to create the fan effect. Yes, drifting is always an issue with me!!
ReplyDeleteLovely Karin. You did an awesome job and I also believe this FMQ motif is perfect for this quilt. I wish we lived closer as I'd be happy to loan you my Baptist Fan ruler, by Westalee. Works well. I think I picked it up in my first (and only) ruler work class, as I started the path to learning ruler work. I take it your sit down machine is working well (good tension) now? I sure hope so.
ReplyDeleteYour Baptist Fan quilting looks really good, Karin! I have a tip for those big circles that want to slide -- learned this in Lisa Calle's ruler work class a couple years ago. She told us to cut HandiGrip tape in small pieces, like 1/2" to 1/4", and put a few of them strategically on the backs of those circle rulers. It makes a huge, HUGE difference in stopping the circle from shifting as you're quilting around the curve.
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