Whimsical Whirligigs

January Happy Hour Goodies

Back in January, I visited my Happy Place (the Granary Quilt Shop) for Happy Hour, which included this fun jelly roll and the Pom Pom Parade pattern.  I picked up some fun black and white printed fabric for use in the background and I already had yardage of one of the fabrics included in the jelly roll.  I tried to tuck it away and be strong with my New Year's Resolution of focusing on tackling my UFOs.  But these fabrics just beckoned and in a moment of weakness, I simply pulled them out and started to sew strip sets and cut up 60-degree triangles!  

Everything was fine until I decided to deviate and add borders.  And then it became a UFO for several months until I could figure out the border situation, and another few months to figure out the quilting.

The finished quilt was well worth the wait as I worked out some of these design decisions.  I decided to go with some asymmetrical borders using the fun fabric, and balancing it out using a small swatch for binding in the opposite corner.

After cutting the triangles, I had almost 8-9" of scraps, which were sewn together for use in the quilt back!   And one leftover whirligig made for a great quilt label!

  

Quilting on the Reverse Side

For the quilting--I still had the muscle memory of quilting petals along an isometric grid.  And then I did some echo stitching in the black borders and hemmed and hawed about doing some free motion quilting in the printed border section.  

I finally gave in figuring it was a small section and I could always rip it out.  It turned out to be a great decision and proved to be lots of fun just doodling along the motif!  It also gave me the confidence to try FMQ on a larger project!

Close Up of my FMQ Doodling along the motif!

My quilting worlds collide:  FMQ and Walking Foot