Tuesday, February 21, 2012

The Spin I'm In... part 1

I offered to quilt this piece for a dear friend. You probably all have seen this pattern of interlocking pinwheels.

So many that make this pattern make a smaller wall hanging. My friend made a good sized piece so there are so many pinwheels, I don't want to know how many there are. Before beginning visible stitching, I outline stitched in the ditch around each black pinwheel. I want to create a quilting pattern that doesn't require marking. (As an art quilter, I seldom do that anyway). So I broke the pinwheel down to 4 same elements and treated each triangular(ish) element the same.

ONE. Using the outside seams as the initial visual point of reference for needle drawing, I began at the center of the pinwheel and free motion straight line stitched toward the outer end of the pinwheel, then turned the corner stitching toward the opposite side edge. (NOTE: Kindly ignore the in-progress batting fuzz seen in close-up views. I will be cleaning this up at the end.)
TWO. Another right angle turn and stitched downward toward the center stopping about 3/4 inch from the pinwheel center seam .
THREE. The next step is to stitch again toward the outer end paralleling the first stitch line and also stopping short from the end of pinwheel stitched line again by about 3/4 inch.
FOUR. Now turn again with a short curved hook stitch pattern.
FIVE. And finally head back to the pinwheel center seam of origin with right angle stitch lines pretty much going right through the middle pf the channel created by previous stitch lines.
SIX. Back to the seam of origin where a short distance stitch in the ditch will get you to the next pinwheel element.

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