TGIFF - Electric Swirl

Welcome to TGIFF, aka Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday, being hosted by mmm! quilts right here in sunny Kingsville, Ontario, Canada.

This is a place where you can show off your finishes for this week, visit a few others, and probably find yourself chasing a squirrel!
We are in need of hosts for July and August especially, so if you'd like to give it a try, and you know you'll have a finish in one of these two months, click here to sign up for a spot! It's really easy to host; you do not need to have a paid subscription to a Linky Party host. If you're familiar with Crazy Mom Quilts' Friday linky parties, this is how yours could look. 😁


I live by the shore of Lake Erie, and when I say, by the shore, I mean it's a 4-minute walk to the shore! Thus there are lots of photo ops all along the lake. This quilt is one of the items on my Q2FAL list.

Seacliff Beach just a few kilometres away from my house

This week I have one of two more Plus Playtime QAL quilts done and ready for next Friday's parade and major giveaway. I took this one, which I've called Electric Swirl, because of the swirling motion of the plus blocks across the quilt, and because the large plus 'shadow' is using a fabric called 'Electric Glide' from the Wonderlust line by Paula Nadelstern for Benartex Fabrics.

Here is the original quilt, as featured in the ezine Modern By the Yard back in January.

It has a definite playful, kid feel to it. When I talked with Benartex and said I wanted to do this year's QAL using the ezine pattern, they were pretty excited! I said I wanted to give the quilt a different vibe, show that it could be an adult quilt too. I'd just finished being part of a blog hop for Paula Nadelstern's new line, Wonderlust, so when they offered me fabric to make a new version, I whooped and fist-pumped the air, and then said calmly, "Sure! Wow! Thank you! How about Marbella for the pluses against the black and Electric Slide for the large plus?" You've seen the quilt evolve over the course of the QAL, whose main page can be found under the Quilt Alongs tab or by simply clicking here.

Photo shoot at the Leamington Marina

Do quilts talk to you? They do to me. I often don't have a written-in-stone plan for quilting. Sometimes I have a general feeling or a couple of ideas. I load up the quilt and get started. This one I knew I wanted to accentuate the swirl of the ribbon of plus blocks. I knew I wanted to differentiate between the three areas of the quilt, the background, the large shadow plus and the small dancing pluses. Here's the finished quilt, a little more visible than my proverbial quilt in a tree shot!

The fabrics are this vibrant IRL

I settled on swirls in the background, knew that from the get-go.

A totally opposing quilting motif would be angular, and so I settled on one of my suggestions in the last step of the QAL, straight lines. I opted to do a set of two on either side of the seams, then a set of three in the centre of the block.

The top row of dancing pluses I did a flowing wavy line that followed the ups and downs of the pluses.

I wasn't totally sold on it, but I rarely unpick quilting, and thought it will most likely look fine overall. Remember that! With your noses inches away as you quilt, you often will be unhappy, and if you're me, saying bad words and thinking you aren't doing a good job. Step back after you lay down the finished quilt fresh off the frame and invariably, no 100% of the time I go, "Oh! Yes!" I did like the texture this design gave.

Only upon binding the quilt did I discover a little corner of the row where I'd not worked my way back:

Oops! No worries; I loaded the Exquisite thread on my Bernina, wound some The Bottom Line in the bobbin and filled it in.

Back to Avril, so I went on to the middle row of pluses, and came up with a design that is similar to the one I showed you on the previous QAL instalment, and one I did on my first published quilt for Benartex's ezine, Coins of the Atocha.

It got quite the Instagram love.

I opted to change threads across the pluses after the first row. It was a bit of a PITA but worth it.
Tip:  When quilting the 1" diameter pebbles inside the outlines, think 'touch, touch, touch, touch' as you touch the four 'edges' of the square in which you're putting the circle. Here are the three Exquisite threads I used on the top, The Bottom Line was my bobbin thread throughout, LOVE.

There's something to be said quilting with polyester, virtually no lint at all!

And then there was suddenly just one final row of pluses...what's a girl to do? Why, a combo of the first and second rows! Christina Cameli had just the motif, which she calls 'Swift':

It's done on a 45° angle, and I just love it! I drew the one wavy 'spine' and freehanded the rest from there.

Here is the overall quilt by the water's edge:

Interesting in that this quilt can go any one of the four sides up! Here I photographed it with the pluses flowing vertically. Cool.

Here is the back:

Electric Swirl garnered a little attention! You can see shadows of my photographer himself, (he's usually the quilt holder, so I'll forgive him this time), and of a couple who stopped and said, "Nice!!" This is a harbour-side restaurant we need to try soon.

The label:

Great close-up of the navy Marbella and the Electric Slide fabric; these fabrics are now available in a LQS near you!

The binding is sewn to the back and topstitched down on the front, an application I'm liking for quilts I plan to sell or plan to use a lot. This is the former. As long as you match the thread to the backing, the line of stitching that shows is barely visible. On the front the black thread melted into the binding, which pleased me when it was done, although stitching with black thread on black fabrics is no picnic!

One last, setting sun photo for you:

Quilt Stats
Pattern: Original design
Size: 54.5" before quilting; 53.75 X 54" after quilting; 52 X 52.75 after laundering!
Fabric: Wonderlust by Paula Nadelstern for Benartex Fabrics (provided by Benartex)
Batting: black Hobbs 80/20 cotton/polyester (love it, no bearding at all!
Backing: Marbella (part of the Wonderlust line)
Quilted: on Avril my HandiQuilter Avanté, ruler work and free motion
Threads:  pieced with 100% cotton Gütermann; quilted with Exquisite 100% polyester, Superior The Bottom Line in the bobbin
Number of Stitches: 182 515

Now it's your turn! Be sure to visit one or two links before you to spread the comment love once more, now blogger has fixed the issue, (well you have to go in to your Settings and fix it).

Linking up:
Dizzy Quilts for the Q2FAL

An InLinkz Link-up

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