Watermelon Eyelashes Quilt and a Moxie Update

My first quilt finish of 2022 is called Watermelon Eyelashes. This is quite a long post as I’ll be discussing how you can put too much pressure on yourself and become paralysed by it. So buckle up!

This quilt begun almost a year ago after I taught my Journey to the Centre of the Earth virtual workshop at QuiltCon Together.

This class is all about using my Freehand Foundation Piecing technique (blog tutorial here) and needle-turn applique shapes to create quarter circle bands which are joined with improv curve piecing. You can see the original piece here. I include lots of different ideas for the students to try but also encourage them to experiment with their own ideas. And wow, did they ever!!

In fact they came up with so many great ideas that I decided to ‘capture’ my favourites in this new piece using just pink, black and white.

I loved the dramatic effect of the restrained palette and the more simple approach to the design with just one band of pattern. I decided this should be the start of a new quilt.

So the next time I taught a class that involved the same technique I chose the same palette for my class sample. This was my Dandelion Clock Block class (as regular readers will have spotted on the left!) and I thought the pink, black and white looked just as good with this design. On Instagram a few people remarked that the block looked like a watermelon.

I carried on using this same palette for all my class sample blocks throughout the year, trying to make each of them look a little different. This meant finding ways to disguise the Dandelion Clock design while teaching that actual class!  These experiments didn’t always work out and some blocks didn’t make it into this quilt.

By September I had another four of what I was now calling ‘pattern ring’ blocks and shared the image above for the ‘Current WIP’ prompt on the Great British Quilter week on Instagram.

This time I had comments that it reminded people of designer eyelashes.  So the quilt became Watermelon Eyelashes!

I made some more blocks as I taught more classes in the autumn and then I threw myself into finishing enough blocks and sorting out the layout.

I decided to go with the same layout that I had used for my New York Beauty Brigade quilt, with a centre circle and then 3/4 circles in each corner. It’s quite a traditional layout and I liked the juxtaposition between this layout and the modern improv blocks.

I finished putting together the 16 blocks and was delighted with the result.

But I felt the dramatic effect of all that black and white would be enhanced if I added more of the pink background around the edge. I also wanted the quilt to be bigger (the finished size is 56″ x 63″). So I attached this patchwork border, lining up the sizes with the central blocks.

I finished this back in November and loaded it to my Handi Quilter Moxie.  I then had a real crises of confidence and it took me nearly two months to finish this quilt!

Recently I’ve been enjoying using the channel lock on the Moxie to achieve straight line quilting, either matchstick or what I call ‘ Random Plaid’ as seen on my Free Bird Quilt and the Weather Bubble Temperature Quilt.

For this quilt I decided that the pattern rings should feature in the quilting but I didn’t want to go as ‘fancy’ as my Tiny Improv World Quilt, but instead to take a more modern approach and use the ruler for outlining and filling with simple lines to emphasise the piecing. I would then use straight line quilting for the background beyond the rings.

My current approach to this sort of quilting on the Moxie is to baste the quilt on the machine from the top edge to the centre and then to start quilting from the centre line downwards (when complete I return to the centre and start quilting upwards, taking my basting stitches out ahead of quilting as I go).

It all started well, using the HQ Skinny Ruler and differently spaced lines in different directions to fill the centre quarter circles. I wanted at least one of the quarters filled with curved lines to echo the shape and started to quilt these without the ruler. But after a bit of a break from FMQ type quilting (all those straight lines!) I was out of practice and very unhappy with the quality of my freehand curved lines (way too wobbly).  I unpicked the first attempt and tried again. This was a bit better but still not great. I added more lines in the spaces and this improved the appearance (and is the only bit of machine curved piecing to survive – in the photo above).

I moved on to another curved section and tried again – still awful!  I decided to leave it in place and if I still felt it looked terrible at the end I would unpick when the quilt was off the machine and hand quilt instead.

But this experience really shook my confidence and I kept putting off working on this quilt.  It stayed on the Moxie for over a month (a record!) as I just wasn’t enjoying the experience. I must note that this had nothing to do with the Moxie Long Arm itself, which was behaving impeccably as always.

It all settled down in the end and I started using the ruler to manage curves when outlining which was a big help (but I didn’t dare try filling the quarter circles with curves again!). The idea behind the quilting was coming together and I was managing to use a combination of HQ Skinny Ruler and the channel lock to achieve the randomly spaced straight lines in the background. I decided to leave more of the quarter circle areas unquilted to add in hand quilting later.

I finally finished the quilting over Christmas and started adding hand quilting details using Aurifil 12wt cotton in black, white and a number of pinks to the free areas. I also unpicked the offending machine curved lines and replaced them with hand quilting!

I used Aurifil 40/3 for the machine quilting in the Moxie. Here’s a photo of the back of the quilt to give you more of an idea of the effect.

I used faced binding to finish the quilt and in the end I’m very happy with the quilting and the quilt. But the experience did shake me a little.  I’ve been struggling with my quilting mo-jo over the last few months but I had thought this was all about piecing not quilting (which I have been loving so much since I got the Moxie).  I think there is a fine line between pushing yourslef enough to improve your techniques and stretch yourself and pushing yourself a bit too much and taking the joy out of what should be a fun hobby!

If I start thinking that a quilt might be good enough to enter to competitions then I am under way more pressure to finish it well. This was the case here and when things didn’t go to plan I got very disheartened and started questioning everything. This is very unlike me!  And one of the reasons I’m talking about it here is to hopefully reassure others that even the most self confident, gung-ho person you know (me!) can suffer with low confidence and doubt.

But I have found a solution. Over the last week I have pieced and quilted 3 (yes 3!!) orphan block charity quilts! I took the pressure off myself and just got sewing and quilting.  It’s been such fun and has restored my love of both things and brought joy back to my quilting! More on this in a separate post soon.

Meanwhile I am so happy I pushed on through with Watermelon Eyelashes, that in itself is a triumph.  And the quilt has turned out to be bright and cheerful! I am teaching this ‘Pattern Ring’ block technique as a new workshop. The first one will be IRL at myBearpaw, mt old store and studio in Edinburgh, in February. More details here.

If you think you might be interested in finding out more about the Moxie head to Pinhole Quilting’s website here.  While you are their why not sign up for their newsletter. You will see a box on the sign-up form asking for a Moxie Mentor Referral Code.  If you enter my code JA102 you will get a big pack of thread and accessories worth over £100 (as listed above) if you go ahead and order a Moxie!