Quilting the Circle Game

Some of you may remember the Circle Game quilt I've been making for a year now - a BOM from Amitie Textiles in Melbourne.  The finished top looked like this.

Well I've taken my mate Trudi's advice and stay-quilted it with a few straight lines just to hold the whole thing in place.  Having done that, I've taken out the basting pins and bound the quilt with a scrappy binding before embarking on FMQing.  I prefer to quilt my quilts without the batting hanging out at the sides because it gets up my nose and makes me sneeze.

I normally can't afford designer fabrics for the backs of quilts but splurged on this quilt because so many hours and hours have gone into it.  So, instead of my default backing of an old sheet, this one is backed by the Michael Miller Going Coastal print, the bottle tops, which I am in love with.

So far I have FMQed three of the circles.  I've invested in a whole stack of Aurifil colours for this quilt and am just going to go crazy on it.  Anything goes.  No rules.  Using the Bosh Bash Bosh school of quilting where you just make it up as you go along.  For better or worse.

And here, in case you're interested, here are my FMQ rules and guidelines.

1.   Shoulders down, music on, smile, chillax, enjoy, however rubbish your quilting is looking.

2.   Do not unpick.  NEVER.  If it goes wrong, keep on smiling and keep on going, just pretend it never happened.  Once it's washed, you will never notice that little bit where your brain sent error messages to your arms.  Only unpick if you get major bird's nests on the back because your tension's gone haywire.

3.   Keep reminding yourself that this is not going into a quilting contest, will not enter a show and will never be judged by anyone who knows anything about quilting.   Unless you're a professional quilter in which case you won't be reading this drivel anyway.  Well you might be reading it but you won't be learning anything from it.  And also remember that anyone who knows anything about quilting will see it and be kind anyway because they know how hard FMQ is.