"Drunken Circles" do. Good Stitches quilt is done!!

Happy Friday everyone! (I am off work for a 3-day weekend, so it is indeed a happy Friday for me!)  It's time to reveal the January NURTURE circle do. Good Stitches quilt in all its scrappy, bright, modern glory :)

I designed the block for this quilt back in December and called it "Drunken Circles".  (The tutorial is here for anyone who wants it.)  The ladies of Nurture circle took my design and ran with it.  Not one. single. person. complained about sewing curves, they just jumped right in and did awesome!

There are some really cute fabrics in this quilt.  I can't pick a favorite, but I love the black and white dogs with their food bowls.  ...And the tennis shoes.  And the space aliens.  Like I said, I can't pick!  It's all bright and modern and fun.

Everyone got their blocks done on time and they all arrived by February second, so I was able to get started quilting right away.  I set the blocks 3x3 and put the tenth on the back.

Incidentally, for anyone else who regularly designs quilts for bees, I was trying to come up with a block size that would only require each group member to make one block but would yield a good sized quilt. (Usually everyone makes (2) 12.5" blocks. Set 4x5 it yields a 48"x60" quilt).  It turns out that that size is 15.5"x20.5".  12 blocks set 3x4 will make a 60" square quilt or 9 blocks set 3x3 make 45"x60".  So now you know :)

IKEA music backing.  You can see the quilting better on the back

I decided to do spiral quilting with multiple spirals intersecting. I have spiral-quilted successfully before, once on my first do. Good Stitches quilt and more densely on a baby quilt.  However, those were both just one big spiral and it turns out that makes a difference.  With the previous quilts I used my walking foot and as I sewed any shifting of the fabric was just pushed evenly toward the outside.  When I tried to use my walking foot to quilt intersecting spirals I got MAJOR shifting and wrinkling.

So.  After some unpicking and repinning I switched to my FMQ foot, put on the attachment with the measurement guide and finished the quilt FMQ.  Whew! Disaster averted.   I used a cool black and white IKEA print for the back and machine sewed black and white binding to finish the quilt off.

I used at least 5 thread colors in the quilting. One of my Christmas presents was a box of assorted rainbow color threads and I had a blast trying out different ones.  Since the fabrics are so LOUD the multicolor quilting doesn't overwhelm them.

The dense quilting made for great fresh-from-the-dryer krinkle and I love, love, love this quilt.  Thank you, as ever, to the ladies of the Nurture Circle. You guys rock!

This quilt will be sent out early next week to My Very Own Blanket , a charity that gives blankets and quilts to children in foster care.

Linking up to Finish it Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.