Squaring the Circle Quilt

There are 2 reasons why I am so excited to show you this quilt.

One is that it made the cover of the latest issue of Quilt Now magazine!!

This is my first project for Katy and so I was really honoured to be the cover star! Especially after flicking through the mag and seeing all the awesome competition in there!!
There is just page after page of amazing projects! So if you haven’t checked this magazine out yet, do yourself a favour and go buy a copy!

And the second reason is that this quilt has been accepted for the QuiltCon exhibition!!!

I was so surprised and pleased when I got the email a couple of weeks back to say my quilt had been accepted. I only entered this one quilt. But when I saw all the #quiltconreject photos on Instagram I was really shocked that mine had been selected! Part of me does worry that they’ll be disappointed and change their mind when they receive it! But I think it’s normal to feel a little undeserving in this way.

I have mixed feelings about entering quilts in to shows as I’m not sure I believe in judging artistic pursuits.
In ‘My First Age of Quilting’ I did have quilts in The Quilter’s Guild shows and also a contemporary quilt show at the Shipley Art Gallery in Gateshead. I remember the feeling of pride when I went to visit and saw my quilt hanging as part of the exhibition. So I think the fact that I will be going all the way to Austin for QuiltCon in February, and the fact this is the Modern Quilt Community, a movement I feel very happy to be a part of, spurred me on.

The quilt pattern my seem familiar to some of you. That’s because it is a large version of this mini I made a few year’s back for a swap. This one was called Solid Science and here is a post that tells you where my inspiration came from.
The other reason it may look familiar is that we use this mini for our Stitch Gathering logo!
I always planned to make a large version of it as I loved the optical illusion effect. And then I bought some Drunkard’s Path dies for my Sizzix Big Shot at FOQ and a full sized quilt using patterned and low volume fabrics seemed too good an idea to resist.

I tried really hard with the quilting as I already had an idea to enter this for QuiltCon. I FMQ’d the spirals first, leaving the pale squares free. I was pleased with how it looked, there are some pebbles tucked here and there filling spaces too small for spirals. I had half a plan to matchstick quilt the squares, but when it came to it I was too short on time and worried about starting something that I couldn’t finish. So I decided to quilt these large square spirals. FMQing straight lines is way harder than wavy lines and I did rush it a bit so I wasn’t very pleased with the result.

But it’s ok, I’m dealing with it. And I know I’m still on a very long FMQ learning curve!

Over all I really love the quilt and will be very proud to stand in front of it at QuiltCon!