Getting in Gear

Once I finished the background of radiating gears and suns were stitched, there were two bare patches left.  At first I thought I'd extend some of the border to cover them, but once I started quilting the border I decided that wouldn't work.

Since the border is all stars, I thought the two bits of background should feature more gears.  Gears needed patterns.  I spent Sunday morning tracing and cutting paper patterns.  Cans of various tomato products and a plate served as my circles (I really need to buy a compass).  Three basic size did the trick.



The idea was to pin them on the quilt, then stitch around them.  The first one had wavy lines and was stitched too finely.  I modified the paper patterns, adding lines a quarter-inch in as a ruler guide.

Much better:  the top cogs were done with the ruler; the bottom cogs without.  Ripped out the bottom gear and restitched.  Oh!  straight lines and sharp corners.  I couldn't believe the difference.

I added circles and zig-zags to the bigger gears.  The little ones were left. 

Overall took a lot longer than I thought it would, due to reworking the patterns, ripping and restitching.  I caught the edge of the paper a number of times and spent time tweezing out the paper bits left behind.  If I make a pattern to use with a ruler again, I will cut it down to the size where I'll put the ruler edge, rather than all the way out to where I stitch.  I would have been happier not to have caught the paper edges.