Baptist Fan

I'm working on a broken herringbone quilt that I started 13 months ago, with Molli Sparkles in a QAL.  Of coarse I set my vision to big and eventually decided to put the quilt on hold and just made this Christmas table runner.

Well, 13 months after starting this broken herringbone quilt,  I have finally finished the quilt top and am ready to put this quilt together.  

I have decided for this quilt I want to quilt a baptist fan pattern but I have never done this.  I know I'm a little crazy to quilt a pattern like this on a home machine, a 72"x85" quilt, and never having tried the pattern before.  

My first issue is I  don't have a circular template to create the fan.  I looked at my local quilting store and they have 1" half circle patterns.    I really want the fans to be farther apart than 1" but not so far as 2", meaning they won't work.  Many tutorials out there show how you can freehand your circle, but that does not work for me!  Other blogs show how some used lids or other circular shapes.... Not what I want.

I decided to create a template for me.  After digging around in my untouched scrapbooking closet I found some thin plastic and a hole punch.  

At first I thought I would want my fans quilting with circles 1 1/2" apart so I marked and punched my template ever 1 1/2".

After drawing the circles and seeing how far apart they looked, I re-marked (notice the black dots) my template at every 1 1/4".

Here is my sample drawings to see how big my fans will be.

Before I quilt anything I have to draw it!  If I can draw something on paper I can learn to quilt it on fabric,  if I can't draw on paper then I'm crazy to think I can make it quilt perfectly on fabric. It's not perfect, but it works and I found how I wanted my baptist fans quilted.  I will be quilting from right to left so I drew my fans from left to right.  Make sure you know the direction you will be quilting before you draw fans on your quilt!  

Next I practiced quilting on scrap fabric, but you aren't going to see how that turned out ;).

Next I marked my quilt's lower half and started quilting it using Arofill, 50wt light grey thread.

Here is where I am to.

WIP

This week I really have to many mommy things going on to sew very much, but when I get a few minutes the machine is chucking along!  

Hailey wants to be Belle for Halloween.  This is really fun for me, because most 11 year olds want nothing to do with being a "Princess".  Keeping her little for another year is just what I need (though she's over 5' already).  I was thinking the other day how almost 2/3 or 66% of her time at home while I'm raising her is over.  Time passes so quickly!

Now I just need to make the top and the poofy slip!

I'm working on sashing this MSHBQAL.  This week is suppose to be the quilting week, but let's just say I'm a little behind.

I do have 20 of my 24 blocks made.

Now off I go to get ready for teaching our rotating preschool in a few hours.  Tomorrow is my Princess #4's birthday do I'll be showing of the cake and fun birthday party tomorrow!

I'm linking up to Freshly Pieced, (her links on my sidebar).

I also just recently finished my 3 year olds new blankie.  Thankfully she loves this!

I just used my walking foot for quilting this with straight lines.

This is the quilt I made for my neice Ashlee and is my FMQ!

Here you can see its swirls.

I really love the choice of fabrics on the back.