Adventures in Fan Quilting

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

This week, I tried to learn something new.

It's actually something old--fan quilting.  We mostly call it Baptist Fan now, but that term is relatively recent.  In the late 1800s, when the quilt above was probably made, they may have just called it fan quilting or shell quilting.  (Click HERE for a great article on fan quilting.)

Many years ago, I made a Churn Dash quilt and hand quilted the fans.  I used a string and a piece of chalk to mark the arcs just like they did the in old days, which sometimes turned out okay and sometimes was a mess.

This is the finished quilt.  I think it should be have been more closely quilted.

I have a friend who is very good at doing fan quilting, free-hand, on her long arm machine.  She quilted this star quilt for me.

I've often wondered if I could do this kind of quilting on my domestic machine.  I don't do free motion quilting (yet?), but it seemed like these would be easy curves I could sew with Mrs. Pfaff's built-in walking foot.

So I bought this template.

It's called Around the Block, by June Tailor.  It's a hard plastic template, which should hold up well, and I liked all the lines for positioning it.  I decided to try it on my Shoofly quilt, one of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilts for this year.  The blocks were already set with paisley squares, and divided into 3 sections of 3 rows each, spray basted to the batting and backing.

I was ready to get started, but I had one BIG problem.  If you use a template, you have to mark the quilt.  I dug out all my marking tools.

The chalk pounce worked fine, but the marks wore off as I was quilting.  The template's channels were too narrow and deep for my marking pencils.  Or chalk markers.  Or soap slivers.   They were obviously designed for those special quilt marking pens or markers.

I needed the marks to be visible on dark fabrics, light fabrics, and the paisley squares between the blocks.  The blue marker did okay on the light fabrics, but was invisible on the dark fabrics and blended in to the paisley.

I was tearing my hair out.  Did I need two markers, one light and one dark?  What if one kind needed to be removed by washing and the other by pressing with an iron?  It would be easy to mix that up and end up with permanent marks on the quilt.  I bought several markers, and kept trying (and failing).  Until I finally tried the purple disappearing marker.

Eureka!  It works!  I haven't used these kinds of markers in a long time, just for fear the marks wouldn't come out, but desperate times call for desperate measures.  The purple is visible even on the dark fabrics, and shows up very well on the paisley.  And so far, the purple is disappearing nicely after the quilting is done.  I will be sure to wash the quilt as soon as I get it finished.

Once I solved the marking problem, the quilting was actually easy.   One section is done, and I'm working on the second section.

Here's what it looks like on the back.

So that's what I'll be doing this weekend.

I dug out another of my home made kits to use as leaders and enders while I'm setting the Text Me A Quilt blocks into rows.  It's a double 4 patch, made from mostly reproduction 1800s scraps.  Once I get the small squares into 4 patches, I have to choose a pair of large squares to go with them to finish the block.  I found myself singing the Matchmaker song from Fiddler on the Roof as I did this.   (Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match ...!)  When I was a teenager, my entire family performed in a local production of the musical, and it was fun to remember it.

I'm setting the 4 patches so the light fabric chains across the block.

Little Buddy asked me to take his picture with his new "friends".  He's adopted these bears who have been living in our basement for years.  The little one belonged to his big brother, now a teenager, and the big one was his mother's.  He snuggles with them for his naps.

It's colder here this week.  Thank goodness we have quilts to keep us warm!  Have a lovely week, and stay safe.

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches 

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Cynthia at Oh Scrap