small bird watching quilt

Another “kit” I made recently was this “bird watching” quilt

But instead of using the 12″ QUBE set I used the 8″ AND I didn’t have enough of this poppy fabric for all the blocks, so first I cut out as many as I could, which was 18, which is then 9 “blocks” so a 3×3 layout or more of a 6×6 signature block layout as there’s alternate blocks. So that dictated all the rest of the cutting.

I quickly made 18 poppy signature blocks and 18 alternate blocks (half of the poppy blocks were opposite)

since half the blocks were facing the opposite way, I couldn’t really turn half as the number was uneven so I came up with this layout

and then added a border and made the quilt 32″ x 32″ so a nice baby quilt size.

Since I had done two quilts using QCT’s pantograph setting, I wanted to try QuiltCad and see what I could make, it’s kind of like a quilt block layout like EQ is, so I chose a 6×6 block layout and each block being 4″ and then I picked a design for every other block and another design for the alternate block and tried it out!

At first I had it cut the thread, but then it didn’t pick up the thread right, so I turned that off and just let it drag the thread but still doing a tie-off option.

Here’s the quilt all done, I did a few mistakes

Mistake #1: some of the blocks or rows of blocks were not stitched straight- I know the fix now of stretching or distorting the design on 4 points on the corners of the row, so it will change it, if the quilt is on the frame crooked or seams are not straight.

Mistake #2: Border #1 I sort of did the same mistake, but that was under the pantograph section and I later found the 4 point option, so now I know.

Mistake #3, the flower border I FORGOT to take note of how many flowers fit on the shorter border, but I did line it up pretty well!

When using automation like this, you have to work in a long row, so after I did the middle, I did the borders on the top and bottom (could have done the top first, but I didn’t know what I wanted yet) but then when the bottom borders are done, I had to take the quilt off of the frame and turn it 90 degrees and pin it back on, then add the inner and outer borders again and shrink them down or reduce the repeat, I should have noted how big the flowers were. BUT I did find the starting point on the 4 point option and lined it up pretty well. (Not so well on the inner border)

Again I’m pretty happy about it, I’m learning a new software and having a BLAST!

I also learned how to nudge the needle back to the design when the bobbin thread ran out! that’s quite tricky!

Looking at the back is just FUN!!

not a great “folded” quilt look, as Swiffer ran behind the backdrop right when I took the picture, but I thought it was funny.

Here’s the first 4 quilts I finished in 2 days on the JUKI!