I recently shared my first full motion quilting project, a mini table top quilt that I made to test out my limited FMQ skills.  I jumped into a larger project, this pinwheel reindeer quilt for Christmas 2015. This project took a little longer than expected, so instead of finishing it for Christmas 2015, I finished it for January 5, 2016.  Oops.  Better late than never!

The quilt itself is very simple.  I used two fabrics, a tan reindeer print with a green solid background paired with the same reindeer print in reverse.   Since both fabrics are busy prints and the prints do not contrast each other, the pinwheels are not instantly recognizable.  It almost just looks like a plain blanket rather than a quilt.  For this reason, after piecing the quilt, I wasn’t in love with it, and decided to use this project as a larger test for FMQ.

I used a basic loop-de-loop motion to free motion quilt all over the centre of the quilt.  I used my walking foot to sew lines within the beige polka dot border.  My walking foot comes with a metal guide bar that I could use to help line up the linear pattern evenly, so I stitched another line down the centre of the side blocks.

This quilt had a lot of outtakes (my backing got a big wrinkle in it and I had to stitch-rip a fair bit of quilting to fix it, plus one of my cats decided it was the perfect place to throw up while in progress, leading to some sneaky cleaning), but in the end it came together fine.  I’d like to make this pattern again one day, but using fabrics that can really show off the piecing.