Eight Carat Quilt Along Part 3 - The Finishing!

I think it’s confession time. Even though life sometimes gets in the way of piecing, where I really get stuck in the quilt-making process is the actual quilting. I don’t know that I’d go so far to say that I get paralyzed by fear, but it’s pretty darn close. Because of this, my quilt top was completed a month ago.

Even though some of my points are a little cut off, I’m really in love with the way it came out. I’m glad I was able to use fabric from a previous Sew Sampler Box. The Triangles on a Roll made half square triangles super easy and It’s Sew Emma/Fat Quarter Shop always have easy to follow instructions.

Over the years I’ve spent many hours crawling around on the floor pinning my quilt sandwiches together. And I’ve hated every one of those minutes. I recently decided to give 505 Basting Spray a try and I’ve found I’ve been SO MUCH happier with the results. I make sure to use it sparingly and so far, I’ve been pretty happy with the results.

Before I moved on to the quilting I did a little bit of research. I thought I would use my walking foot because I’m still not super happy with my free motion quilting. (It’s tough wanting to be perfect at something that really does require practice.) I found a Leah Day machine quilting design called matrix and I thought it might look neat with the star. So, I attached my walking foot, stuck my supreme slider on my machine/extension table and promptly got disappointed.

My machine is a Janome DC2011. It’s a great machine for what it is and it has served me well over the last 8 years, but it does not have the most generous throat space. This means I have to do a lot of pushing, shoving, and fighting when I’m quilting. It’s definitely a workout! I have a dream machine and hopefully in the next year I’ll be able to afford it, but for now, I have to work with what I have.

Anyway, I used the seam ripper on my attempt and walked out of the room for a bit. What would I do? I didn’t want to ruin the quilt having just spent all the time assembling it. What to do…what to do? Then I had a light bulb moment and remembered that I have all of Angela Walters quilting rulers (my machine is also not REALLY designed for these, but I’m making do). I picked up Elvira and started making some wavy lines.

Even with the ruler, my quilting isn’t PERFECT, but it’s definitely better! As Angela says, “Finished is better than perfect!” I’m not going to be entering the finished project in any contests, but I do like the overall look. I was pretty happy to finish the quilting and get the binding on. I didn’t have any Aurafil (my preferred thread) that matched, so I had to grab some older Coats & Clark from the collection.

Here it is finished! This is before it took its bath in the washing machine. I think I did a pretty good job not making too many wrinkles in the quilting. There are a few, but once it was washed, you can’t really spot them.

And here it is washed and photographed in the bright sun. The backing is just a solid FreeSpirit Fabrics color that coordinates with the Tula Pink collection.

Project Details
Finished Size: 60” x 60”
Pattern: Eight Carat Quilt from Fat Quarter Shop
Fabric: Tula Pink Spirit Animal; Moda Bella Solids; FreeSpirit Fabrics Designer Solids
Batting: Happy Cloud 80/20 Silky Batting