5-Block Charm Sampler Quilt Pattern & KISMIF Linky Party 15

So I've decided to enter the Quilt Blogger's Festival over at Amy's Creative Side.

I decided to enter their new category--designed by me--with my latest quilt pattern, 5-Block Charm Square Sampler Quilt.  A special "thank-you" goes out to Karen Perry for doing the pattern checking and piecing of this top.  I did something similar for Moda Bake Shop--but with different quilt blocks and thought it would be fun to publish another version of the pattern in its original setting.

It can be purchased here: Craftsy, Etsy and Pattern Spot.

Also, as promised, some new patterns that work with pre-cuts are available now on Connecting Threads.

The Ruby fabric line from Moda Fabrics was used to create this quilt top.  Looking at it, it's hard to believe that it was once all charm squares!

The center of the blocks was perfect for some curved cross-hatching.

The center of this block was perfect for a nice swirl.

Today's FMQ (free-motion quilting) tutorial is about this quilt and is being shared with My Quilt Infatuation Linky Party and Sew Fresh Quilts Linky Party.  As always, remember to KISMIF (Keep It Simple & Make It Fun).

The hardest part of quilting this project is that my machine doesn't have a 22 inch throat--so how can I custom quilt all of those blocks at once?  I had to divide them in sections and decided that all of the "back-ground" (white) areas would be done in white and the print fabric areas would have a loop the loop style to them.  Truthfully, my machine only has a 9-inch throat so I work in sections about 6 inches wide at a time.  If you look at the photo below, you can see the back of the quilt and that the block is stitched in the ditch in thirds.  This just happens to correspond to my machine's throat space.

You can see how it looks on the back.

Un-loading the quilt from the quilting frame--my favorite part!

Here's a diagram of a thread-path to practice tracing to get nice and even loop the loops.  These are so simple that they can even be done on a domestic quilting machine.