Ombre Twirl

Monday was what I call Stash Artists Day. On the first Monday of each month, I send an email to Stash Artists members about the devotion for the month, the new block for our BOM, and in alternating months the upcoming Sew Together Session or the new pattern. Stash Artists doors will be opening again next month, so join the waitlist if you want to be notified when you can join us. 

May is a pattern month in the membership, which means I can share Ombre Twirl now that the members have access to this new pattern.

I designed Ombre Twirl a year or more ago so I'm glad it made it to the top of the list so I could finally make it!

The Ombre Twirl block uses squares in light, medium, and dark values to create the ombre effect. I discovered some interesting things about my stash while choosing the fabrics for the squares, like that almost all my red fabrics are the same value! That's why there's no red block in the quilt; I couldn't get a nice light, medium, dark progression. I also found that my blues are primarily dark, though there are enough lights and mediums mixed in there that I could make some blue blocks. It was a lot of fun digging through my scraps and my stash to find the right fabrics to put together!

I used my Accuquilt Go machine to cut the scrappy squares and the background strips, which made the cutting go really fast. I don't always remember to pull out the Accuquilt, unless I'm looking for a way to occupy the childcare littles with something different, but I'm trying to use it more often. It's especially helpful for cutting up scraps, since I can't easily cut multiples at once with the rotary cutter, like I can when I'm cutting from yardage.

I kept thinking about how to quilt this one while I pieced the blocks. I figured I would probably outline the scrappy strips, then quilt something in the squares and something else in the background. I couldn't decide what to quilt, though. In fact, every time I thought about it, I felt quite a bit of resistance, like I didn't really want to quilt that much detail. When I thought about quilting a simpler, all-over design, I was much happier with that idea.

That had me thinking about how my go-to quilting style has changed over the years. I used to do a lot of really small, dense quilting, but now I find myself more interested in open, loose designs. I'm not sure there's a reason for the change, though it may be because I'm making more scrap quilts and all-over quilting seems to fit them better. It might also be that by the time I get to the quilting stage I'm usually excited about the next quilt I want to start, and all-over quilting tends to be faster. Whatever the reason for the shift, I'm still having fun with the free motion quilting, so it's all good.

I've done meander quilting with loops and flowers or loops and hearts, but this is the first time I combined all three. I mostly did two loops then a flower then two loops then a heart. I say mostly because there were a few times I got confused about what should have been next, and a few times when I needed a third or even fourth loop to work my way out of a small space before I could do a heart or flower. The beauty of this kind of quilting is that it really doesn't matter if I make a 'mistake'. No one is ever going to pay enough attention to trace a line to make sure I quilted the motifs in the right order!

I pieced together scraps of Warm and Natural batting for this throw size version of Ombre Twirl. When I'm piecing scraps of batting together, I cut the edges I'm going to join with a rotary cutter, then sew them together with a wide zig zag stitch. I tend to avoid piecing batting for anything larger than a baby quilt, since I find it hard to sew long seams of batting without getting ripples, but I only needed to join two pieces and it went fine this time. 

I wasn't at all interested in piecing the back, though, so off to my LQS I went. I found this pretty teal swirl wideback, so I didn't have to sew even one seam for the back. I love fabrics with swirls, so this was an easy choice.

How many pieces of sea glass can you spy in the picture?

While I was shopping for the backing, this grey print caught my eye. I loved the colourful x's, so I picked it up for the binding. Normally I would choose a scrappy binding for a scrappy quilt, but I really love how this print frames the quilt, especially since it's just a bit darker than the solid grey background.

I took Ombre Twirl to the beach along with Shining Through, on one of the few sunny days we've had recently. There was only a slight breeze, but it was still enough to make the quilts fly when they were clipped onto the backdrop stand. Here are a couple of the outtakes 🤣

This one is my personal favourite. I think the quilt was trying to do a magic carpet impersonation!

When the quilt actually hung straight, the sun shining through it was so pretty!

Once I finished taking quilt pictures, I wandered around on the rocks for a while, soaking up the sunshine and the sound of the waves. I found a few pieces of sea glass, including a pretty purple one! I tried my hand at stacking the sea glass for a couple of pictures before I headed home, and I liked how this one turned out.

I can't wait to see the Ombre Twirl quilts made by Stash Artists members now that they have the pattern! And remember, get on the waitlist if you'd like to join us when the membership doors open in June.