Gail's Asian circle quilt
 

My friend Gail saw a quilt I made and posted on the QB several years ago https://www.quiltingboard.com/pictur...c-t207883.html

Like me, she also has a love of Asian prints and was inspired to make one as well. She loved it so much she made a 2nd one for her good friend who is a Buddhist teacher and had me quilt it for her (I also quilted her first one but never got pics of it). Each of these quilts were quilted differently. All the circles are turned applique and hand sewn. As an aside, I am also making another circle quilt like this for my DH who was disappointed when he found out the first one I made I was sending off to my mom. It is languishing in my UFO pile but I will finish it, hopefully within the next year.

Because her friend is a Buddhist teacher I researched motifs significant to Buddhism. In between the circles I quilted lotus blossoms and in each of the corners I quilted a Dharma Wheel. The Ginkgo leaf borders were in keeping with the Asian theme of all the fabrics. All the circles are ditched as well as the inner borders and the large square on point formed when Gail changed fabrics. I loved that touch, so much so, that I wanted to emphasize it by changing design to an Asian style cloud.

Techy details
Batting: 1 layer of Hobbs Tuscany wool
Thread: Glide in color Cleopatra in the top and magnaglide prewounds in the bobbin (Tuscan is the name of the color of the bottom thread). The Cleopatra Glide is very shiny and could almost pass as a metallic. It really helped compliment all the metallic in the fabrics and positively shimmers under direct light.
Quilting time: 31.5 hours
Marking time: approximately 6 hours
Design and research: I never keep track but easily another 6

Here is the whole quilt taken from a few different angles:
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Some closeups of the quilting:
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And a gratuitous back shot. The wet spot is from me spraying the top to get some wrinkles out of the circles from being rolled up on the take up roller.
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As always, I look forward to your comments. Thanks for looking.

You are truly an artist!

Beautiful, great quilting

what a beauty!

I love the fact that you took the time to research symbols that would be meaningful to the recipient. The quilting looks wonderful and fits the quilt perfectly.

Magnificent quilting, appliquing, and pattern. You and Gail scored a touchdown.

quilt and quilting are great

What a stunning quilt! Beautiful job on the quilting!

I agree...that makes the quilt even more special. A beautiful quilt and your quilting is superb. Thank you for sharing.

Excellent on all of the quilt.

another beautiful quilt! Love those gingko leaves!

Just amazing.. I'm so in awe of your quilting talent and appreciate all of the experience and information that you share here on the QB. I'm always inspired by your posts :)

Christine

Beautiful quilt! Your quilting is wonderful.

This is stunning, feline.. I sware....you and Gail create some beautiful works of art together. I hope this is entered show...

Very nice!

Fabulous!Lovely colors.

Both quilts are so beautiful!!! I also love asian fabrics !!

Wow! Lovely quilting, beautiful blocks, great quilt!!!

That is lovely!

Its just beautiful! You certainly put your all into your projects. Your quilting is inspiring

Another stunning quilt and gorgeous quilting from Feline. I have a question about marking. Do you mark the top prior to loading. What do you use on white-ish fabrics? (I thought I saw a hint of a blue marking pen?) What do you use on dark or black? I use a sit down Tiara and tried the iron-off Pounce pad with a stencil on a recent table runner. (I didn't need to iron off, I just vacuumed it with a brush and it all came off of the batiks.) Besides being a bit messy, (maybe that's just me and my technique), it did work on a small project, but can't imagine doing a whole quilt top as it would smudge or disappear completely. I had tried the regular Pounce powder but the action of the foot practically bounced the powder off. Also any suggestions for continuous line stencils. The pounce uses its own mesh type stencils, but it was so small I had to move it about 12 times on just a runner. I know you have the luxury of using pantographs, but I was hoping in your search you would have maybe come across something for sit-downs that don't need to be torn off. Am I reaching for the moon? Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Beautiful quilt and quilting. I think circles are a very appropriate treatment of Asian fabrics and I like the interspersed yin/yang quilting you included, as well as flowers and swirls that look like clouds or water.

That is an awesome quilt and quilting.

I'm just amazed at your talent, and beauty on your work. If I had that, I would be so happy. I don't, but we are allowed to look at your stunning, gorgeous work. There aren't enough words to say. Barny

Thanks for the nice comments everyone. Emiliasnana, My favorite tool for marking lights are the blue water soluble markers. For borders, which usually require a lot of measuring out and dividing the space into somewhat equal increments I mark before loading so on this quilt I marked both borders out before loading. A little hint for dividing them up into equal increments without all the math and measuring is adding machine paper. I cut a piece the same size as the border and fold in half, than in half again and keep folding until I get to a size that works. Often I have to use different sizes for side borders and top and bottom borders because they are rarely divisible by the same number on rectangular quilts. The slight difference in size is not noticeable on the completed quilt. I then unfold the paper and use the fold lines to mark my quilt with a ruler.
Usually I just mark dividing lines and "skeletal" marks. Like for the Ginko leaves, I divided the border into equal increments (using the adding machine tape as described above) then further divided those up into quarters by marking an "X" through each square and used a circle templates to mark the arcs of the leaves lining up the centers with the etched center line on the circle template with the "x" I previously marked.
For the lotus blossoms I utilized the piecing seams as my "target points" and marked those out as I advanced the quilt.
Dark fabrics I use lots of different tools. Because I quilt on a rack, most of the time my marks don't rub out but I know from my hand quilting days that a lot of tools rub off. My favorite marking tool is the ceramic lead pencil but I also have a chalk pencil I like a lot too. I got it an artist supply store and made sure it was oil free. I have also used Roxanne's water soluble white pencil. While I found it made a great mark that was easy to see and stayed put, I found that product was a bugger to get out. Washing it didn't entirely get it out so I had to use a bit of elbow grease. I did eventually get it out but now I shy away from that particular tool. I would never use it on a client quilt because it was so hard to get out so I stick with chalk pencils, the ceramic lead pencil or regular white chalk. I found they all seem to last but with the manipulations of sit down quilting they could rub out as you work and you may have to remark as you go as the line is still faint enough to barely see for remarking as you go.
For stencils, I use regular pounce and give it a shot of cheap hairspray, like aquanet in a can. It washes out easily and helps the chalk powder stay put. I also had the issue of the hopping foot bouncing the chalk right off. The hairspray really works well for that. Again, I would only use this process on my own quilts, not customer quilts unless the client was ok with getting the quilt back with the marks that, in my experience, always wash out.
Unfortunately I am not familiar with any products for sit down quilters that mimic pantos without marking or tearing off the paper except water soluble products you can mark like Sulky Solvy. Again, with those products you need to make sure you mark them with something that washes away, like Crayola ultra washable markers or blue water soluble markers. And you also have to figure out how to attach that to the quilt so it stays put.

Here is a link to a tute I did on marking a dark border. https://www.quiltingboard.com/tutori...g-t275470.html

Very pretty!

That is spectacular!-- your quilting is the perfect compliment to the fabrics and pieced pattern. I love the lotus motifs that you used. Thanks for sharing your process.

Rob

This is positively stunning! The design is wonderful, and the care you took in finding motifs to complement the fabrics and the recipient are truly heartwarming. Great job! Your friend is going to be thrilled with your terrific work, and her friend will be touched by both of you and your generosity.

Leslie

That quilt is so stunning. Thank you for sharing your methods...we all learn so much on this board from people like you.

Nice quilt and quilting.

Very pretty.

Absolutely stunning!!!!!!!!!

As usual, as stunning work of art. It is absolutely beautiful.

Wow what a beautiful quilt! the fabric and the quilting is exquisite!

Absolutely delightful.:cool:

Wow. Such beautiful artwork in thread. I love your quilting. A wonderful quilt.

I too love making Asian quilts and needed something different, are the circles applique onto the squares?! I'm so excited Now! Been in a funk and haven't been in sewing room for 2 months since I broke my foot!! Now I can plan!!

Lovely! I appreciate the work of both of you.

Very nice!