How Did I Quilt That: Spinning Wheels

This was a fun quilt to make and quilt. I found a paper piecing pattern called Wild Winnie. I wasn’t wild (pun intended!) about the dusky rose color scheme in the photo I saw, but I imagined how wonderful it would look with multiple colors and that is how I ended up with Spinning Wheels.

Spinning Wheels, by Marijke Vroomen Durning
Spinning Wheels, designed, machine pieced and quilted by Marijke Vroomen Durning

Instead of placing the squares all in the same position, I turned them so the colors were in different spots – giving the spinning illusion. The flying geese in the border was a deliberate choice because I wanted the borders to blend with blocks.

Once I was done, deciding how to quilt it was a challenge. I was too critical of every idea I came up with and then I finally decided to play it by ear.

I started by stitching in the ditch around the triangles in the circles and along the black lines, as well as along the borders and flying geese. I then did bubbles/circles in the white parts between the black stripes.

I followed the bubbles with feathers in the first white border and then more bubbles/circles in the white fabric around the flying geese. I didn’t quilt in the black borders to allow them to pop a bit. And then I finished it off with straight lines in the final border.

Usually I like to have more of a plan before starting the quilting process, but this one worked out just fine.

Here is my process in a short video:

Last week, I featured how I hand quilted a large butterfly quilt: How Did I Quilt That: Butterflies in Flight

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