Arctic Quilt

Arctic Quilt

Quilting is still new to me. I was quick to discover that managing a big quilt in a sewing machine is difficult and cumbersome.  I won't give up on this skill but, in the mean time, I am really enjoying exploring some Quilt as You Go (QAYG) techniques.  I've learned that QAYG can mean a lot of different things, but I am focusing on techniques which allow me to heavily quilt smaller pieces (ie. 12 inch square blocks) and then sew the blocks together.

I saw Jera Brandvig on a YouTube video and she was talking about her books called "Quilt as You Go Made Modern" and "Quilt as You Go Made Vintage".  I loved the techniques she was using in the video so I bought the modern version of her books.  Here is her quilt pattern called "Rainy Days".  I made it using a "fat eighth" bundle and some white fabric with white polka dots.  Jera's technique for this quilt is to quilt a 7 1/2 x 10 inch rectangle on a piece of batting which is about 10 1/2 inches square. After you quilt the initial rectangle onto the batting, you then sew on border strips above and below the initial rectangle.  After pressing, you do additional quilting on the border strips.  Then you trim the blocks to 9 1/2 inches square.  When all blocks are done, you sew the blocks into rows and then you sew all the rows together.  Next you add the backing to the quilt top. To me this proved to be just a difficult as quilting a larger quilt top in my sewing machine.  The backside of the quilt is a little floppy and not heavily quilted like the front of the quilt is.  After the backing was secured by stitching in the ditch between the various blocks, I applied a nice neutral gray binding.  I've included some close up photos of some various blocks so you can see how fun and creative the quilting part was for me. I even used a bunch of my decorative stitches for variety.  

I am really loving the QAYG techniques.  My next project is my Quilt Sampler project. I've shown it in a few posts already.  I think I have 20 blocks. I am going to quilt each block separately with top, batting, and backing, and then assemble the blocks with sashing strips.  Yesterday I did some practice "Free Motion Quilting" on an extra quilt block and I am loving the Free Motion Quilting.  I've decided that will be my technique for the Quilt Sampler project.  I need to buy fabric for the batting.  In fact, I am typing this post right now, killing time until my local quilt shop opens in 6 minutes.  Off to buy some fabric!