When Size Matters and Puckering Happens

A curious phenomenon occurred between piecing and quilting my color wheel mini: It became a throw.

I loved this project from the get-go and worked hard at fine-tuning the color transitions (see here and here). But once I realized what a 40-inch quilt would look like hanging from my bedroom wall, I had to regroup. There just isn’t anything mini about a quilt of that size.

I added to the length and height of the quilt easily enough. Then it was time to quilt. Sigh. Quilting never goes smoothly for me. I started by quilting along the wedges of the color wheel, extending each line to the edge of the quilt. Then I began echoing the border around the wheel. That’s when I saw puckering where those horizontal and vertical quilt lines intersected the lines radiating from the color wheel.

I went into problem-solving mode. I continued to quilt at breakneck speed, sure that the puckering problem would spontaneously resolve itself (which, of course, it didn’t), and then I went into problem-solving mode. I knew that the pressure on my presser foot was fairly light, a lesson I had learned the hard way on another project, but I considered:

Was I basting adequately?

I spray my quilts all over (as opposed to Elizabeth Dackson’s approach of spraying every few inches, which I have since tried on another, yet-to-be-blogged-about quilt). I encountered some tutorials online that recommend setting basting spray with an iron. If that contributed to my problem, it was too late to fix it. I put that advice in my back pocket for another project and another day.

Was starting with diagonal quilting lines contributing to the problem?

My friend Kim and I discussed whether I was inadvertently stretching the fabric by quilting lines on the bias before quilting lines on the cross grains of the fabric. It was something worth considering, but if I stretched the fabric, there was no recourse. Stretched fabric is stretched fabric. Again, it was a factor I’d keep in mind for future projects.

Was I missing an opportunity to flatten out the fabric on the fly?

Another friend, Sarah, asked whether I wore gloves while quilting. I don’t—I consider them an accessory for free-motion quilting, not straight-line quilting. She showed me how she uses gloves to flatten problematic sections and avoid pin tucks like the ones I was experiencing. This was a technique I could try on this quilt, even at this stage.

In the end, I put the quilt in time-out for a few weeks. When I was ready to deal with it again, I ripped out a significant amount of the straight-line quilting outside of the color wheel itself (it’s worth mentioning that both Kim and Sarah cautioned me against this, but hey, I am a stubborn lady with perfectionist tendencies!). Then I started quilting again, this time working from the opposite direction I originally worked in, which meant I always had more quilt rolled up inside my sewing machine than I did hanging off of it. I also wore gloves and tried Sarah’s suggestion. It wasn’t easy to do with a spray-basted quilt; I had to loosen some sections to better manipulate the fabric. Together, however, these measures avoided any puckering. Woo hoo!

I was happy to use an Autumn Woods print, by Kate & Birdie, on the quilt top and binding. I used every bit of the yard I had on hand in this quilt.

This is a very me backing. I love how the two long swaths of Kona Brick frame the center patchwork.

I’m so pleased with how the quilting looks on the back, and I was happy to use that Edo Blossom print from Makower UK so prominently. Love it!

This is my first finished quilt of 2015 and my first sizable quilting project in many months. What the heck have I been doing?! Minis. Bags. Quilt tops. Pretty much everything I could to avoid quilting. But I’m on a roll now! Expect a series of finished quilts over the next few months. : )

Linking up to Sew Cute Tuesday, Let’s Bee Social, Needle and Thread Thursday, TGIFF, and Finish It Up Friday ...