More Double Wedding Rings and a Tutorial

When I got married in 1977 to my dearly beloved, it was a double wedding ring ceremony. Simple rings, simple ceremony. It was in Africa and a garden affair (actually someone's lovely back yard). Most quilters imagine a Double Wedding Ring quilt to be daunting and I agree - unless you find some shortcuts. And I'm the queen of shortcuts!

Two years ago I was sent a collection from Blank Fabrics called Mariko.

From the Mariko Collection by Blank Fabrics

I combined them with some blenders also from Blank called Rock Candy:

Rock Candy Blenders

I used the pattern I shared on Monday and foundation pieced 8 wedges:

Foundation pieced DWR wedges

(A mistake to photograph these on my green cutting mat!)

Then I began to sew these to the melon shapes, squares and concave background pieces. SLOW is the operative word, I assure you!

Sew one paper pieced unit (with paper removed) to the center melon

Sew background piece to another pp wedge; now add corner squares

Add a background unit to the first section with the melon attached. And what do you get?

In looking at this picture again (photographed 2 years ago), I realized that I didn't like this arrangement! Can you see the difference between the picture right below and the finished quilt? Yes - I decided to leave one of the curved paper pieced arcs without the floral background piece. Repeat 3 more times and NOW we have the finished table topper (last picture). This is what happens when you abandon a project for 2 years!

One quarter of my DWR table topper

Now it was time to machine quilt my 4 units. I have had fun using my new Handi Quilter Sweet 16 (sit down model) and this was a perfect size for that. Again, when a fabric is a busy print, my belief is that you don't have to be fancy with your quilting. I used my loops in the center and then "echoed" the wedges in the DWR arcs using up and down swirls. I selected one thread that would work with all the colors.

Double Wedding Ring table topper quilted on a Handi Quilter

I have used bias binding only a handful of times in my 30 years of quilting. For this, I HAD TO use bias binding. Whew! I was sweating bullets, for sure.

If you want constant inspiration of what a variety of Handi Quilter machines can do, visit their Facebook page to see daily pictures of some awesome work. And they're not "loopers" either (like me).

See? It's not that overwhelming. Of course, I did not make a bed sized quilt. I just satisfied my desire to both work with those fabrics and to see how a DWR unit would look.