Finished in 2013: Donut Quilt

Can I share with you my very favorite new project?

Donut Quilt!!!!

I don't really sew very many quilts so when I do, I want to love them like CRAZY and have the process make me incredibly happy.

This project? It fit the bill.

The pattern is by Johanna Masko. I've long admired the quilts that she designs and people at the workroom sew up. I think the main reason why I was able to sew this up so smoothly was because the pattern is written so.incredibly.well. For real. Very, very, very little waste which I *love*. Nothing drives me crazier than half way through cutting a pattern realizing I could have cut wayyy less because the cutting instructions are wonky. This was spot on without a bunch of extra scraps floating around. A total quilting newbie could make this and have a blast.

For me, this is the perfect sized quilt. I made the throw which measures 51" x 63". I can have it on my lap when I'm sewing, I like it as an additional layer on my side of the bed and it fits nice when I'm in the car. I'm pretty sure everyone is so sick of seeing this quilt in photos but I'm really using it a lot! And loving every second of it!

I try really hard to only use precious fabrics from my stash in my quilts and there are some real gems in this quilt. I want my personal quilts to be truly special and important to me, nothing is off limits. I guess I feel like it's pointless to buy special fabrics, only to never use them. Dorky but true!

I used Lizzy House's Constellations for the background because seriously, how great are these little stars? And then her pearl bracelets in cotton candy for the borders. I used some special batiks, some liberty of london, a few Japanese prints, etc. Lots of gifts from friends, I think I have a little bit of Karyn's stash in all my sewing. I backed it with Japanese donut fabric because...how could I not?! ;)

I free motion quilted all the circles on this. I started by tracing a canner lid absolutely perfectly on top of a donut. But after doing the first bit of quilting, it looked too stiff & contrived. So I traced 8 more circles at random intervals and free motion quilted around each of them, branching off to create more rings around those. It was so hard to get photos of the quilting and I hope you don't judge the close up photos too harshly, free motioning circles is HARD! My walking foot & I don't get along so free motioning is where it was at. I used the oval closed toe free motion foot for Bernina, #15 if you are curious! I had the stitch length set to 3 and it seemed to work fine. I used a mix of King Tut & Aurifil in the needle & Bottom Line in the bobbin. Sadly it's become *really* hard for me to find nice thread locally so I had to use the cream threads I had on hand and now I'm completely out! >:(

After machine quilting the circles, I went in with Cosmo Sparkle Floss in White and hand quilted little squares inside some of the donuts. I was a teeny bit nervous using a metallic thread for hand quilting but it went through the washing machine & dryer absolutely beautifully. I used a red work needle for this rather than a traditional hand quilting needle because the floss is too thick for the eye.

I used Pellon's Nature's Touch batting. I almost exclusively use Quilter's Dream but my local quilt shop was out & I saw JoAnn's had batting for 50% off. I have mixed feelings about it. I loved the weight & loft, how it washed up, how little lint it left in my machine. I didn't love that you can almost peel the scrim away from it. At one point when I was pinning it Chop was like "is this stuff fusible? What is this?" It's not ideal for hand quilting at all. BUT the price is decent and if you are in a pinch, it's fine. I'd use it again if I couldn't get Quilter's Dream or if I had a limited budget. Which I almost always do. ;)

I raided my scrap bin for the binding. You all are so kind on saying how nice my binding looks in my previous post! I've been trying really hard to bind the proper way, it turns out this whole time I hadn't been folding my corners correctly! eek! But now I think I'm on the right track :)

You can read my previous posts about the donut quilt here! & here! Phew!

My next quilt? THIS ONE! That border slays me!

ps: thanks chorp for holding my quilt so patiently. ;)