Apple Jack Quilt #2 and Spiral Quilting Tips

I had a lot of fun quilting in a spiral again. I did a few things differently this time and it worked so much better! I'll start off with what I learned and then you can see the quilt in all its glory. ;) This quilt is on my Q2 FAL list (found here).

This is the first one I quilted. I went counterclockwise not thinking it was a big deal which way I went and I ended up with this near the end. All I could think was that it's a good thing this is a baby quilt!

Round 2 - CLOCKWISE!! Who knew it would make all the difference. This is in the middle of the quilt and it just kept getting better and better. It was SO SO much easier to feed the quilt through and even stay on a spiral.

What I didn't do but should have was to draw the spiral with a fabric marker and then trace and remove. Sadly, I don't have one of those but it's coming in the mail. What I DID do was switch over to my walking foot much sooner than the last one. Last time I went for a radius of about 6" before I changed over, this one was more like 2". I thought it would be hard to turn with the walking foot but it's really really easy. Switching earlier meant that my spiral looked a lot more uniform sooner - excellent!

So here it is - the Apple Jack Jelly Roll Jam quilt #2. I like how I separated out a lot of the blues and aquas for this quilt. I like the feel of it.

I also love the apple binding on this one. The corners are also much improved thanks to a guild class on binding. She told us when we're doing our fold-over for the corner (when first sewing the binding to the quilt) that you should extend past the quilt a tiny bit, 1/8" or less, and that will give you more fabric when you flip it over and make your corners look more like a right angle.

Just a fun artsy picture with the cute fabric. I really like taking them from this angle.

I also learned how to get an awesome picture of spiral quilting. Go to the second worst place for lighting in your house and give it a go. I was taking pictures and this storm came in but I didn't have a good shot of my quilting. I went inside and flopped in on the floor and was amazed at how the quilting was popping. So I grabbed a picture to share.

This quilt is available in my shop here. Anyway, I hope my tips helps someone. I was so afraid of spiral quilting and then I just went for it last week and I'm so glad I did. I just have to remember - CLOCKWISE! I'm linking up with Finish It Up Friday and TGIFF.