Thursday, March 19, 2026

SAHRR , FMQ, and I Quilted This!

Hi and welcome 😊 There are so many acronyms in this blog title - I feel like I could be back at work! So my Stay At Home Round Robin (SAHRR) is almost a flimsy (quilt top) and this week I found calm by doing some free motion quilting (FMQ) on my orange scrappy baby quilt. It was a busy and productive week, and I'm glad that you're visiting!

Almost a SAHRR flimsy

Here is the top border added to the SAHRR piece. It went relatively well until I added the last piece. I was shocked when I discovered that it was about 2½" short since I was so sure that it would fit. At least it was easy to add extra fabric. You can see in the photo below that I gave it an extra inch or so for good measures. Everything will get trimmed before adding the final side borders.

SAHRR quilt with pieced side and top borders

I now have 3 blocks to add to the bottom and will do roughly what I did for the top border.

I had originally made this small block by sewing the smaller hour-glass blocks together. Unfortunately it didn't really look like hour-glass blocks.

Original small hour-glass blocks
sewn together

So I researched hour-glass quilts and found that they are usually made with a couple of colours and are set in different directions. Then I pulled apart my little block and made four more small hour-glass blocks with a purple background. I placed it within a block - so now I have the two larger blocks to set and then add the bottom border.

Three last blocks for the bottom

Next steps: The parade starts next week, so I'll have the flimsy done by then.

Sew the last three blocks into a bottom border and

Add the 4" final border.

Add the outer side borders. I don't trust my estimated measurements, so I'll see if it's the size I want once the side outer borders are on. 😕

FMQ a Scrappy Baby Quilt

I really needed a break from the SAHRR, so I got back to the scrappy baby quilt. I finished stitching it in-the-ditch, and then started FMQ. I remembered that I wanted a dot-to-dot quilting (à la Angela Walters) but somehow forgot about the dot-to-dot part and just started with Angela's Shape by Shape designs.

FMQ the scrappy quilt

The FMQ is really difficult to see because I used 100 wt. white Bottom Line thread. It worked well and I could see most of the quilting as I was doing it.

FMQ using mostly straight lines which I drew before quilting

FMQ details

Backing where you can see the stitch-in-the-ditch and some FMQ

When I realised that I wasn't actually doing dot-to-dot quilting, I took out my FMQ journal - I have attached all of Angela Walter's diagrams in it. I really want the FMQ to be light. This will be perfect.

What I learned

I was tired of working on putting the SAHRR quilt together. It felt like work, not fun, so I knew that I had to do something else.
I'm confident that I'll be able to finish the flimsy by the parade (which I'm sure will run for longer than a day!)
It was calming to do some FMQ on the baby quilt. I'm trying to keep the FMQ light. I'm also doing a lot of marking of straight lines - it's worth the effort if it means keeping my line straight!

I Quilted This!

Welcome to the I Quilted This! linking party that celebrates quilting on a domestic machine or custom quilting on a long-arm. Feel free to link up and share any recent project, even if you're not quilting it!

Here are the posts from last week that included FMQ, ruler work and walking foot quilting last week. Thanks for linking up 😊 and feel free to grab the button.

Kat from Scrapbox Quilts is also an Angela Walter's fan. She FMQ her large open spaces panel with all kinds of wonderful FMQ designs. You'll want to head over there and look at all of her detailed photos by clicking on them to enlarge them. Wow!

Kat's FMQ Open Spaces Challenge quilt

Details of Open Spaces FMQ by Kat

Sally of Crafts, Caves and Cooking made this insulated pizza box for last week's Project Quilting Challenge - My Compliments. Those colours really are complementary and what a practical project!

Sally's very practical pizza box

Gail from Quilting Gail made a lovely red and white baby quilt to donate for March's Red Rainbow Scraps Challenge. It's so cute! It was quilted using straight lines.