Scatterbrain Quilt No.3

It looks like I'm turning into a repeat offender with my Scatterbrain quilts. After I completed No. 2 for Patty, I had an inkling that my crazy quilts were going to pop up again. My newest Scatterbrain Quilt, No.3, was made as a belated Mother's Day gift for my mom, which explains why it has been the most time-consuming (about three weeks from start to finish) of the three.

Being the crafty rolling stone that I am, I wanted to mix up my process for this project. First off, I opted to piece the quilt top in the traditional manner and forgo the QAYG method. I wanted to do all-over free motion quilting, mainly in order to give large-scale FMQ a go on my new Juki. 

using all my oddly-shaped scraps

Second, I resolved to make this a true scrappy quilt by using only fabric from my scrap bins. I tend to cut into my stash out of laziness more often than I should. It's easier and faster to cut a nice neat 8 inch square out of a fat quarter than it is to rummage through my bins and piece together a bunch of tiny little scraps to get that same 8 inch finished square. Seeing how this quilt was for my mom though, I was willing to take the time and make the effort to use all those little pieces.

Scatterbrain Quilt No.3 was primarily an improv quilt. My previous two quilts employed a loose pattern (*Capt. Barbarossa voice* More like guidelines really!) that were 50% pre-planned blocks, 50% improv QAYG blocks to fill in the blanks. This time, I only planned a few blocks (liek the envelope, the green star in the lower right corner, and the hexie block). A few were semi-planned, like the white star on the postage stamp and the heart in the center. I didn't know I was going to do those blocks when I started the quilt, but the idea came to me somewhere in the interim. I avoided planning anything simply due to the scrappy nature. It's hard to make a detailed plan when you don't know what tools you have to work with!

My mom's favorite part is Crafty Chloe by Heather Ross

For the quilting, I did simple meandering loops. My Juki, Brienne, preforming beautifully! I had an afternoon of agony a couple weeks ago while working on my mini quilt for the Schniztle and Boo swap (need to blog about that closer to mailing time) thanks to a new FMQ foot, but since I got that hiccup ironed out, it's been smooth sailing! The auto-tension eliminated about 50% of my FMQ frustrations, as I could never seem to get my tension just right with Broseph. Broseph's foot pedal also felt freaking hyper-sensitive which made it hard to keep a steady speed. I would apply a teensy bit more pressure in a effort to speed up gradually, and I might as well have set him to warp speed! The sudden burst of speed would always catch me off-guard and result in some ugly heart attack in the middle of a smooth curve. Brienne has none of that herky-jerky nonsense and can keep a steady pace without issue.

lovely loopy quilting

I finished up No.3 with my usually scrappy binding and an embroidered quilt label. My mom loves is and even showed it off to some of her friends already! 

top it off with a simple label

Name: Scatterbrain Quilt No.3
Size: 44 x 52"
Fabric: Every dang scrap I had.
Pattern: Improv
Quilting: Meandering loops
Completed: June 7, 2014