Another Nursery Panel Done

This panel has been most interesting. I decided to again use my Handiquilter Multi Clamshell tool, however expanded on the clamshell design and made a 'cloud' pattern. 

For this little exercise I did mark a grid onto the panel though as I was not confident that I would be able to keep the design straight otherwise.

The finished product

So, how did I go about this...first I decided on the grid size, i.e. 2in x 4in and marked this with a blue water erasable marker onto the panel. As I am a very sloppy marker, I half expected that my lines may not be entirely straight all the way up. However, look at the top of the quilt...could not believe it but ended up dead straight. Was a bit impressed with that. I did notice during the quilting that my horizontal lines appeared to be straight, however my vertical lines left a bit to be desired in parts.

The quilting was straightforward

Start with half a clamshell, i.e. eyeballing to stop the needle at the half way mark of the ruler, then continue up with a 2in clamshell and down again with half a clamshell. I marked some alignment points in purple in the diagram. With the Multi Clamshell ruler I was able to align the ruler's lines with the points underneath. For example, point 1 of one row aligns with point 3 of the row underneath...it really pays to get to know your ruler and make as much use of all those alignment lines on it as you can see, in this case I used the vertical as well as the horizontal lines.

Having said this I should also mention though that you will get some compaction as you go along and some of the points do not appear to line up any more with the row underneath. As I have done this a few times by now I was aware of this and concentrated on filling my grid, still checking the alignment as I went along and having an eye on keeping my curves as straight (tilting the ruler ever so slightly can give you problems with the clamshells coming out at different heights) as I could as well as staying in my prescribed grid set up. What I often found was that some points aligned while others appeared somewhat off...it was a somewhat fluid arrangement, but as long as those deviations were approximately similar I did not worry about it as I already knew that this most likely had to do with the slight compaction that you get when quilting. Also, my last 5 - 6 rows of my grid were out by 1/8in...again, no hassle, I just made sure that my clamshells were straight, i.e. all 1/8in underneath that blue line.

For this design, I definitely needed the grid because as soon as you do the full clamshell on top of the half circle you tend to loose all orientation and the grid helps to keep you on track.

Some close ups

I like the look of the back. Looks absolutely precise which of course it is not, but again this is a very forgiving design as you can do a fair bit of fudging when quilting the half circles, i.e. lengthen or shorten them to hit the point on the grid exactly.

While the preparation for this little quilt took a bit longer, the quilting did not take that long and the only hassle was that I had to turn the quilt once I had quilted past the middle as I had too much quilt in front of me. Took a moment to get my brain used to doing the design upside down.

I wonder what I can come up with next.

Karin