A Goyle Squoyle

I took a lot of sewing books out from the library recently. I just searched sewing and reserved everything I didn't recognize. These 2 books have lots of projects. The Japanese sewing characteristics have a lovely whimsy and classic look. I do love a nice tea cozy. We have squirrels in the garage and they drive us nuts with their gathering and storing in poorly chosen places. As nesting seems to be involved, we call them the 'bad girl squirrels' and that has evolved into 'those bad goyle squoyles!' Say it a few times. It works.

Then we had these great prints at work and I wanted to quilt. I thought this would be a beginner quilt. Now it theory it might be, but I may have a quilt disability. I got this idea from a magazine, but wanted to change dimensions. The squares are on the diagonal and this meant I needed to pay attention to the diagonal measurement when setting quilt dimensions. My head hurt. Quite a bit. All I really needed to do is ask the Amazing P as she knows all when it comes to quilt math. I know this now! She whipped through the math needed for borders on my second quilt, and I still really don't understand what she did. However, I know where she lives.

Have you figured out the neat part? The squares on the front stop about 1/3 of the way to the top edge. Then they reappear on the back, on the top 1/3. This means you can turn back the quilt and bedazzle everyone with your amazing trick. Wooooowwwwww! I know. Too cute. Now, if I had made the quilt longer I could tuck my pillows under the turn back (second pic) for a true retro look. But I didn't think of that, and I don't think it was what I wanted anyway.

I had the shop quilt it. I've never done that before. We used a variegated thread and a simple swirly pattern. It really suits the quilt and shows up well on all those cream squares. Our shop quilter girl M had to make the back and front diagonal squares meet and line up. We hadn't considered that. As the squares also end at the quilt edges there was no room for messing around. I understand strong language was involved. I wasn't there. That was been a good thing. However, M now has X-ray vision to see through quilts from all angles. She did a great job! Don't you love the prints? Retro, but updated.

I have another quilt at the shop for quilting now. I think I prefer to do the quilting myself. I don't like to hand off my works of whatever to others. When I look at something I like to have ownership of all the warts and wiggles. However, the long arm quilter does a lovely job, and it is good to try new things.