Crazy Scrappy Quilt Finish

I am happily reporting that my Crazy Scrappy Quilt is finally finished and looking ever so bright and cheerful - just makes me smile to look at this.

After my previous spiralling woes, I did finally order this long quilting guide bar set for my Janome QXL605 last week.  The good news is that the pack comes with an arm for each side of the walking foot, so I am now able to quilt a spiral with the guide arm to the left of the needle which is by far the easier way.  The not so good news is that these long arms don't work so well if you want the quilting to be closer together because the excess sticks out beyond the back of the walking foot and gets caught in the quilt bulk being manipulated through the throat space. (Thought I should warn those of you who might also be interested in these.)  I will have to learn how to "manage" that but for this quilt I didn't quite succeed and ended up quilting the spiral about 4" apart.  I like the lightly quilted look, just hope it's enough quilting to hold it.

Here's a better shot of the spiralling on the rather loud backing I pieced!

I must confess when I popped the quilt in the washing machine this morning there was rather a lot of domestic activity to distract me and I totally forgot the colour catchers.  Of course, I remembered half an hour into the wash when it was too late to do anything about it,but I am happy to report that all those bright fabrics and the navy sashing and borders behaved themselves beautifully - phew!!

This quilt may, or may not, be gifted to a very special girl, but I am toying with other quilt options for her too, so will have to wait and see which makes the final cut.

Almost forgot that this quilt is another finish from my FAL Qtr 2 list.  Just 2 finished so far, need to get my skates on if I'm going to clear all 6!

Bee Blessed finish

I've been working on finishing off that Wonky Crosses quilt for Bee Blessed over the past week or so. The binding seemed to go on for ever!

I thought I would share a couple of finished pics with you since you were all so lovely consoling and commiserating with me over my spiral quilting trials.  In the end, the wibbles in the spirals have had the edge taken off by a good old tumble in the washer and dryer and it's not quite as bad as I thought.  I still would have preferred a smoother spiral but the quilt looks good nonetheless, I think.

the back

This quilt is intended for a gentleman recipient and we hope it will provide some comfort to him and his wife at a worrying health-related time.  Thank you to all of you who contributed wonky crosses blocks for us.

As an update to my questions re the guide bar on the quilting foot I have confirmed that the bar that came with my walking foot is indeed only intended for right of needle positioning.  It is however possible to purchase an additional arm (which extends to 4.5" wide if wanted) which can be positioned either left or right of the foot.  At another £13-15 on top of the £30 paid for the foot itself I'm not madly impressed but I probably will succumb at some point because I do love spiral quilting and really want to make it easier in future.  It's also very handy for other guided quilting too.