Double Wedding Ring / Metro Rings, Quilting is Finished!

I completed quilting the wedding quilt for my daughter and her fiancé today.  All that's left now is the binding and a label.  I don't want to show the quilt here until they have seen it, so here is a picture of what the quilting looks like on the back of the quilt.

And a close up of one of the ovals.

I am very excited to finish it and give it to them.  My next blog post will likely be the reveal.

Double Wedding Ring / Metro Rings, Started Quilting Background

I finished quilting all the rings yesterday and started to think how I wanted to quilt the white background.  I had looked at pictures on line and was pretty sure how I wanted to quilt the oval shapes, but not totally sure for the other shape.  I decided to practise some designs without any thread in the machine which would just leave needle perforations.  It worked great and helped me decide what to do.

Here is a picture of the first full row of rings with the background completed which means one sixth of the quilt is finished.

And here's a close up of one of the rings.

I decided to use rulers to guide the background quilting too.  I think it would look funny if I switched the method on half of the quilt.  The only downside is I do have to mark some guide lines which takes a bit of time too.  Even if I only complete a row of rings a day and take a day to bind, I will be finished by next Wednesday and the wedding isn't until the following Sunday.  Loads of time!

Double Wedding Ring / Metro Rings Quilt, Quilting the Rings Started

I got the backing fabric on my frame and went to put the batting on and realised the only batting I had was the unbleached cotton kind.  Where the background fabric of this quilt is bright white, I didn't want to risk the unbleached colour showing through and dulling the white so I had to go get some white batting.  My husband helped me roll the batting on the roller, it is so much easier to do with two people.  I got the top on the frame and started quilting the rings in gray thread.  Here's a peek.  Don't look too closely though some of it is a little wiggly.  If I were better at free motion, I could be doing this quickly fee hand, but I am using rulers so it is going slow.

I now have one third of the rings quilted and it took approximately 7 hours.  Once all the rings are done, I will switch to white thread and start quilting the white areas.

Double Wedding Ring / Metro Rings, Top finished! Now to get it quilted!

We were away at the cottage for an extended long weekend again and while there I sewed the last seam on the quilt top.  Monday morning to be exact.

First, here's the final block.

And now here's the final row and the two previous rows and the first half of the quilt which means only two long seams left for the quilt to be in one piece.

The lighting wasn't great because there are shadows from all the trees, but here's the finished quilt top hanging sideways on the clothesline at the cottage.

Today I purchased the backing fabric so the next step is to get quilting!

Double Wedding Ring / Metro Rings Quilt 5/6ths done

I was away from the sewing room for an extended long weekend but got back to work yesterday and completed the second last row, row five of six.  Here you can see the first three rows accordion pleated on the design wall to save space and rows four and five sewn together.

Row six will not take much time to complete.  Here it is laid out with just the grey pinwheel corners left to add with rows four and five folded up so I had enough space on the bottom of the design wall.

Almost finished piecing!