Josh’s Cirles & Spirals in a Disappearing 9 Patch

Josh here. We’re moving along in our Disappearing 9 Patch blocks, and this is my attempt at circles and spirals.

I enjoyed stitching the square spirals. I love the look of them; they remind me of Aztec designs. Yes, I kind of went overboard with straight lines as I completely ignored the circles and made little target symbols instead.

Partly I was “cheating” (and I have no qualm about that!), but I’m also trying to master free hand quilting, that is stitching without following marked lines. I also discovered a bonus visual effect: my not so perfect, not so straight lines set against the circles really made them pop, giving them a subtle 3 dimensional feel.

Here is the finished block:

free motion quilting | Leah Day

And the back:

free motion quilting | Leah Day

At this point, I hope you’re beginning to experiment with each block too. Even if you’re just changing things up a little bit, coloring outside the lines–so to speak–or even adding your own designs I’ve found to be so helpful in the learning process.

Until the next design!

Josh

LeahDay

Leah Day has been teaching online since 2009. She's the creator of the Free Motion Quilting Project, a blog filled with thousands of quilting tutorial videos. Leah has written several books including 365 Free Motion Quilting Designs, Explore Walking Foot Quilting with Leah Day, and Mally the Maker and the Queen in the Quilt.

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