Perhaps you are aware that Angela Walters has been hosting Machine Quilting Along Challenges this year on YouTube.  The first one ran early in the year and involved piecing a quilt top and then using it for lots of machine quilting practice.  I completed that one and posted about it here.  The second challenge ran during the middle of the year – I think late summer and into early fall – and was all about swirls.  I really enjoyed the first challenge because it gave such a great opportunity to just practice and try out new techniques.  While I’m generally pretty comfortable with swirls I was interested in this challenge for a few reasons:

1. Practice is good :).  This challenge featured a length of fabric with borders added rather than a full pieced top, so it was quick to get right to the quilting.  Somehow it is really freeing to have a piece that you know is just for practice.
2. Angela demonstrated several different types of swirl options that were new to me – particularly the echoed dots and a lot of the border options
3. The kit that Angela offered included Glide thread, which I’ve not tried before but really wanted to play with.
4. The focus fabric was polka dots, and I’m a sucker for polka dots!

So with that, I bought the kit, added my borders and got her loaded up.  This wound up taking me a bunch of time to do – or it was on my frame for a long time – because I got busy at work, but I eventually got back to it and got it done.    I have to say that I really loved the Glide thread.  I think it looks great and it was super easy to work with.

Here is the finished top – kind of hard to see any detail here:

and now for an overload of detailed shots!

that big section with pebbles took a really long time to do!

The back:

I had a lot of fun working on this.  I will be honest – this was another really great lesson in just going with it – I thought it was really terrible when I was actually working on it.  It is hard with your nose right up next to the quilt because you see all of the little bobbles and imperfections and become convinced that it really looks awful.  But, as ever, it all looks really good once you get it off the frame and get a little distance from it.

I’m really happy with how it came out.  I’m not really sure what I’ll do with it now – my cat Saffy has been eyeing it as a new acquisition.  Perhaps I’ll have to give it to her!

This was the first project on my Q4’18 FAL list, so I’ll be linking up there at the end of the quarter.