What I have been doing lately-the walking foot saga.

In January I saw this disappearing pinwheel churn dash quilt pattern from the Minnesota Quilt company YouTube video. I thought it was an interesting technique when Jenny did it -but it did get complicated when I tried it with a bunch of scraps I had been keeping. Some of them were very stretchy on the bias, and I wished that I had used starch on them before I started.Nevertheless I thought it was worth persevering. By the time I had 15 blocks I had run out of energy and enthusiasm -and  pink toned fabric

I added some lovely pink and purple Japanese fabrics from my stash to make a border and pinned it together. I did one or two lines of stitches with my walking foot -and then it broke! The spring was broken inside -so the fabric was not advancing and I had a messy set of stitches, some of which I took out.

It turned out that a new Bernina walking foot costs between $145-$175 in Australia. I was unwilling to part with that kind of money, so my DH took the foot to my local repair shop. I waited.

Whilst I waited I took scraps from the previous quilt and I made this Jacobs Ladder quilt (sorry -photo is blurry) .  I added scraps of green to it so it is now pink, green and white: Feminist Colours. This is now known around here as the "feminist quilt". It seemed to me that what it needed in the way of quilting would require a walking foot. I still didn't have one. 

I asked at the repair shop on a fortnightly basis for nearly three months. They were waiting for a part. 

Whilst I waited I made these fun lantern blocks using more Japanese fabric from my stash. I plan to sew this in long strips and quilt them before joining them in a QATG fashion.

The thing is, I make QUILTS not quilt tops. I am a finisher! I usually go all the way from cutting the fabric through to the binding in one operation, before starting a new quilt. I now had three unfinished objects- which was getting ridiculous. 

Last Saturday I went back to the repair shop, to ask one last time. If the part could not be fixed, I was buying a new one. The man went out the back to check -said "The repair man fixed it yesterday -that will be $3!"  Yippee! On the strength of that I went to my local quilt shop (LQS) and bought wadding in their "Buy 2 get one free" sale. I came home and started on the churn dash pinwheels again. 

I have spent the weekend happily quilting on the pink churn dash quilt. I made a frame of straight lines with the walking foot, and am now Free Motion Quilting in the white spaces. I really love the way that adding quilting adds so much to the texture and the interest in the quilt.

By next weekend I hope the quilting will be finished and I can be putting the binding on.