Love in Carnival: a bee quilt

Here it is - my latest Love circle bee quilt! It's so whimsical, so cheerful and cotton-candy pretty that it reminds me of a summer carnival. All the different, fancy blocks are tents to visit. Hmm... so the dresden must be the carousel. It sends all the zigzag quilting turning, turning round the quilt.

I had such a time arranging the blocks. A fun time! I so enjoy the challenge of juggling blocks, discovering the quilt on a design wall. Not knowing what's going to happen keeps me intellectually engaged and motivated to keep working. It's such a different energy from working on repetitive quilt blocks. (Those can be relaxing though!)

Here's where I started, with every single block on the front.

Although the top of the quilt did follow that layout, I found I needed to simplify quite a bit throughout the bottom half of the quilt.

The removed blocks made for an interesting quilt back. All's well that ends well!

This bee quilt is made with the Love circle of do. Good Stitches. Each circle of do. Good Stitches makes for a particular charity. Ours go to children throughout the world via Wrap Them in Love. It's such a blessing to be a part of a team making a difference!

Soo... I tried something new with the quilting. I've been free motion quilting for over a year now, but always curvy. Straight lines are much harder for me to make free motion. Why do straight lines without a walking foot? Well, if you can FMQ straight lines then you can do designs that would require too much turning of the quilt otherwise. It can really free you up!

For this quilt I did a zigzag quilting design that originates as an echo from the dresden block. From there it spirals around the quilt in a continuous zigzag line. I didn't really know if that would work until I tried. Haha! I did have to add a few new zigzag peaks here and there to keep them a manageable size. To make those slight pattern aberrations blend in, I did them over light or busy areas of the quilt (I'm using white thread). That worked! There are lots of not-straight lines in this quilt, but you know how it is... only a quilter would notice/care. I'm just glad I gained the experience, which will open new doors!

All in all, I'm definitely happy with Love in Carnival - the journey and the results. Thanks again to my bee-mates for taking up my open-ended prompt:

Jessica of A Little Gray

Daisy of Ants to Sugar

Ara Jane of you know what i love

Natalie of Greenleaf Goods

Cat of Ups & Downs

Deborah of Little Ms. Sew-Unsew

Jacey of Jaceycraft

Jenelle of Echinops & Aster

Amanda of My Sewcial Hour