Finishing off some Panels

Found two more panels in my stash which I am currently finishing off. Went through some of my fabric and needless to say, I got way too much fabric stuffed in every corner of the room. Finishing off the two panels I thought that I would get rid of meters of backing and use up some additional fabric for the binding. However as I am also looking at a new pattern I promptly ended up at the fabric store purchasing meters of fabric (colours that I did not have in my stash), so in fact I ended up with the same (if not more) amount of fabric in the cupboard. Can't win...

I am quilting the trusted clamshell design again on the panels. Really like the design for baby quilts and for me it is the most time efficient design to quickly quilt out. This time though I made it a bit bigger for the first panel as the panel has larger characters on it and I thought it would look a bit better if I went up by an inch.

For this I used Amanda Murphy's 5in circle template. Was interested to see how this would work at that size and also how I would go with not having the 'stopper' that is on the Multi Clamshell ruler.

The wadding for this panel is 60/40 wool/polyester and the whole thing felt really puffy and light weight when I basted it. Wondered how that would go with a bigger clamshell.

First few rows went without a hitch. I actually did not miss the stopping notch that the Multi Clamshell ruler has. As this circle is bigger I had to anyway quilt half of it, then change my grip to quilt the other half. Don't think there was one stop where I went over. The fluffiness of this gave me some issues though as the whole thing was extremely movable as I went along. I again used a drawing 5in circle to always mark my mid point of each clam after I finished a row to ensure that my row continued to be straight and in line with the one underneath.

Inaccuracies do creep in as you go along however. For me it usually happens when I need to turn the quilt and quilt the clams the other way. I don't worry much about it though as this is not noticable and you can fudge your way through as I have done in the photo below...a bit of a side step to get back to how it should be. Not ideal, but does the trick and unless you go looking for it, will not feature at all.

Coming to the end of a panel is always interesting as you then can see how accurate (or not) your rows have been. Was pleasantly surprised with this one as the last row of clams was 'spot on'.

Finished this in a couple of hours and looks quite lovely in that size.

The quilt feels light and fluffy...will put the binding on tomorrow and then it's onto the next one. And that's it...no more panels in the cupboard and the next quilt show is months away, so theoretically no  opportunity to purchase any more panels unless I go specifically looking for it. Don't know what it is with me and those cutesy panels.

Linking up to the To Do Tuesday Link Up by Texas Quilt Gal. As this is my first link up I do not have a list from last week...

For next Tuesday I would like to have the following things finished:

📌Attach binding to the above quilt and hand sew to back

📌Quilt the second panel and attach binding

📌If time allows, complete one more block of my Elizabeth Hartmann wall hanging

Karin