Rhonda Bracey: At Random

Gwen asked me to quilt another quilt for her for someone’s birthday. It was a modern version of a double wedding ring quilt (73 x 73 inches), and Gwen asked me to do something rounded to emphasise the double wedding rings.

My first step was to stitch in the ditch around all the white centre blocks and the border to stabilise the quilt. Next, I had to decide how to approach the blocks and emulate wedding rings. Circles were the obvious solution, but how big? should they be formal (with rulers and/or markings) or informal (free motion)? spirals or closed circles? how many? where to put them? should they overlap? what thread(s) to use? how to deal with the white centre squares?

I decided to use a variegated blue thread for the large circles and decided to use rulers (Handi Quilter’s half circle rulers) to stitch the circles. Each large circle almost hit the centre joins of the block. I then stitched another echoing circle about 1 inch inside the large circle. Then I stitched more in the offset blocks overlapping the first ones, and did some small ones in the centres where the blue blocks intersected.

For the white squares, I did more double circles (using rulers), this time free motion stitching rounded circles within the boundaries of the circles.

Last was the border. Again, I used rulers (Handi Quilter’s clam shell ruler) and stitched large clam shells from the corners to the centre, filling the centre point and the corners with a little three plumed feather.

This quilt took MUCH longer to quilt than normal — I estimate it took about 12 hours to quilt. Why? Well, rulers is one — you have to go slower and be more careful about hand placement, quilt movement, ruler placement etc. And then there are the stops and starts, which you don’t have when you do a continuous line all-over motif. Also, ruler work takes it out of your shoulders, neck and back, so I only did a maximum of four hours each day to get this one finished.

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Threads used:

• Top: Wonderfil Silco (40 wt, colour SCM 18); Fil-Tec Glide ‘White’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 10000)
• Bobbin: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (white)