The Spiral Dilemma and A Solution

When the quilting bug bites, you just have to go with it right?!!  After a good two month long blah feeling, I have been bitten.  Please let me quilt!  Why do I have to go to work today or sleep (not that I can)?  I.just.want.to.quilt.  That momentum inspired me to not only tackle our November OMG project, but also a little something else.  Our Rainy Day Spiral quilt has just been eager to be worked on.

The Spiral Dilemma

One spiral or more was the quilting dilemma for me.  When my eyes closed, I could easily picture either pattern working quite nicely on this flimsy.

Thankfully, several of you shared your opinion and led me to the many spiral path.  Easily distracted though, I pondered the idea and took a parallel path.  A path that involves stencils and a Pounce pad.  Or so I thought, anyway.

Dilemma Explained

While each block is a ‘perfect’ square measuring 8″ in each direction, there are 35 of them.  I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of quilting a spiral 35 times and having 35 or more sets of thread to bury.  So I took myself to the internet and found The Stencil Company.  They have oodles and oodles of stencils – what a clever name they chose.

Two stencils were found on their website!  One is an 8″ continuous spiral, and the other is called a 13.5″ oval spiral.  I didn’t notice the word OVAL in the description, and ordered both of them.  Nicely packaged for shipping, I was SO disappointed when I opened it to discover an oval.  What am I going to do with that??  Oh well, it’s not like money hasn’t been wasted before.  And then we mulled it over, and by we I absolutely mean me.

Oval Spiral – What??

Am I the only one that thinks a spiral has to be round?  Apparently I need to step outside of my narrow box now and then, because there isn’t a spiral police.  I held up the oval stencil to the flimsy and it fit perfectly over two blocks.  How fabulous is that?!!  Two blocks though . . . there are 35 blocks.  Hmm.  Sue, the genius best friend suggested the center block be quilted using the continuous style spiral stencil.  The remaining 34 blocks could be oval.  Brilliant!  Isn’t it nice that I know someone so talented and smart?!  I’m one lucky B.  But that wasn’t going to quite work either.  Not quite . . . but almost.

Spiral and Pounce Pad

The Finding Nemo quilt’s border was marked using the Pounce Pad without issue.  It is SO easy to just line up the stencil and slowly drag it over it to mark stitching lines.  Marking too far is advance isn’t recommended as the chalk does brush off easily.  Caution was thrown to the wind, as I pounced the whole top at one time.  I made myself a grid before I started to know which way to position the stencil.  Of course, I lost the handy dandy grid when it was time to actually DO the pouncing.  Here’s a mid-pounce shot.  You’ll just have to wonder why it didn’t work out, and how we solved it.  There has to be a reason to read a final reveal post, right? ~big teasing grin with twinkling eyes~

This project has been paused, because Baby Girl’s quilt is much more important.  Right?!!

Our other Linky Parties can be found by clicking the link or along the sidebar on our website for more quilting fun – check out what our friends are up to.  Like/follow us on our Facebook page and you can share your photos of what you’re working on.  We would love to see them!

Sharing