Finishing the Pinwheel Quilt

With the studio finally operational, I've dug into my large pile of unfinished projects.  One of these was the pinwheel quilt I put together from scraps and first showed you here and here.  This quilt was meant to go out on the front porch - even in the warmest of months, temperatures drop off quickly towards dark and something to wrap up in is very welcome!  Now the trees are turning, the view from the porch is gorgeous .... and even daytime temps are downright chilly.

My original plan was to stitch in the ditch along the pinwheels and then free motion quilt a flower design onto each of the white squares, but after trying a sample I felt the flowers looked too fussy.  The squares were definitely large enough, though, to need some sort of tacking down so I decided to go back to my early quilting days and tie the plain squares off.  The very first quilt I made with my Nana when I was eight or nine was a tied quilt for my teddy bear!

This is one of the few times I like to use acrylic yarn - if one plans on washing the quilt (and who wouldn't), acrylic yarn will stand up to the washing machine.  Wool yarn tends to felt, shrink, and pull the fabric around with it resulting in puckers.  Here's how I was taught ...


Using a large, sharp needle (I like to use chenilles) and doubled yarn, push your needle through all layers of the quilt from the top side.  Push the needle back up through to the front side close to where you went down.

Cut the yarn to a little longer than you'd like your tails to be.

Tie in a double knot.

Finally, trim the tails to desired length.  I left mine about an inch long.

After binding with black, the quilt was done and ready for snuggling!

Happy Creating!  Deborah