Circular Reasoning quilt

I realized I hadn’t posted about Circular Reasoning, one of the three quilts I’ll have hanging at QuiltCon this year. I actually started this quilt several years ago, but only finally finished it this summer. This is the first time I have a quilt in the Appliqué category, though it was a bit of a debate whether to put it there or in the handwork category, because it’s all handwork.

The quilt was (very!) loosely inspired by an ad for a rug that popped up on my Facebook feed; the pattern of slubs in it gave me pause.

I was intrigued by the way they were thick in the middle and then tapered off; I thought it would be interesting to choose two sets of gradated colors for appliquéd circles. The colors I chose were mostly pulled from my stash of solids that I got as part of a solids-of-the-month club a few years back.

I neglected to take a photo of the process of making the actual circles, but I did so by basting around the edges and then pulling the thread taut around a heat-resistant circle template; I painted the edges heavily with starch and ironed so they would keep their shape when I pulled the template out.

To decide on the placement, I laid my fabric out and placed the circles where I wanted them. It’s hard to see in this photo, but I did use lines drawn in wash-out marker and my trusty laser square in order to try and keep the lines of circles straight.

After pinning each circle on, it was time to appliqué them all.

After finishing the appliqué, I put the quilt away for a while, until the fall of 2018 when I decided to quilt it. I quilted it with uneven matchstick quilting (my favorite, because I have real difficulty keeping quilting lines evenly spaced, no matter how hard I try!

I also quilted in some “ghost” circles in the open areas. I used a double layer of Hobbs 80/20 and wool battings, so these pop pretty nicely.

After rinsing out the blue marker lines, I blocked the quilt, again using my laser square to keep it straight.

I was able to line the laser up with the quilted lines, but it took A. Lot. Of. Pins.

My goal was to enter this quilt in the Spring Paducah show of last year, but unfortunately I realized it didn’t make the size cut-off by about an inch, so after having sewn the binding on front and glued it on back (a good way to make your quilt look finished for photos when it actually isn’t!) I got frustrated and put it aside.

I did enter it in the Houston MQG showcase last summer, and when it was accepted to that, I had to hustle to actually sew that binding down! I’m really looking forward to seeing this quilt hang in the show.

Quilt Stats:
Size: 58 x 72
Fabrics: Background – Kona White, circles: assorted solids
Batting: Double layer of Hobbs 80/20 and Hobbs wool
Thread: Glide 40 wt in White (#10000)
Stitches: 341,232 (12 spi)