Dots on Dots Quilt Finished!

Yay, I've got my first September goal finishes! I guess the first one was to sew together all of the blocks from the hop and the second was to finish the quilt.

I did end up putting the left over pieces on the quilt as a scrappy squared border. There's a funny story about how those pieces came to be. (Well, funny now but very frustrating when it happened...)

I was cutting all of my pieces for this quilt, some needed to be pieces to make into half square triangles and others were just going to be regular squares. I cut the HST pieces first because there were more of them, so I needed to cut those to be 2 7/8ths inches square for a finished square of 2 inches. Somehow I had it in my head that my regular squares then needed to be cut to 2 inches square, so of course that's what I started cutting. Much to my horror, I realized as I was cutting the last strip apart into squares and looking at all of the pieces together that I had cut all of the regular squares a half inch too small. I didn't even have enough fabric to re-cut them all either.

I quickly ran to JoAnn Fabrics to see if I could get more of the pink, green and center blue and teal colors. Yes - I had to find more of 6 fabrics! I searched and searched for the teal color that wasn't a batik. I couldn't find it. I looked through all of the fat quarter cuts twice, then went through all of the bolts, nothing. So, I decided maybe I was going to have to find another teal fabric to complete the quilt. So, I looked through all of the bolts again and wasn't finding anything that I really liked or that matched the quilt.

So, I said a little prayer (literally), and went to check the fat quarter cuts one more time before heading home defeated. Lo and behold, I found the fabric I was looking for! I think I actually let out a little squeal in the store I was so elated. It surprises me the power of prayer sometimes, especially because all I needed was a little bit more fabric. So, I happily went home to re-cut those 6 fabric colors into 2 1/2 inch squares. I saved the ill-cut 2 inch squares and figured I'd do something with them.

I started sewing them together into a strip thinking I might use them on the back of the quilt, but when I put it up next to the quilt I realized it was the perfect length for a border on the long sides. I had 4 piles of those 2 inch squares that I made into 4 long strips that became the borders of the quilt. I was pleasantly surprised at how well the whole situation turned out! Thank you Lord for having a plan for my mistake!

I made the back scrappy out of the left over polka dot prints I had from the quilt. I haven't had much practice making a pieced backing before and I had a couple puckering issues on the backside while I was free-motion quilting this. Those weren't fun to rip out, but at least I caught them before they were huge issues There's still one little bubble on the back where I couldn't quite ease the back into the FMQ, but it's not too bad. I notice it, but I'm not sure my husband would notice it if I hadn't pointed it out. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it!)

For the FMQ pattern I did a spiky swirl design. I got the idea from Bea who did something similar on her latest quilt. Mine didn't turn out as beautiful as hers, but this is the first time I've done a swirly pattern. I've done loop-de-loops and stippling, but this one was different. I really like how free you can be with FMQ. Straight lines look really crisp and clean, but FMQ is just so much fun! I'm not sure I ever want to go back, haha! Anyway, that's my finished dots quilt. I hope you've enjoyed seeing it come together. :) On to the next project! Happy crafting!