In my quest to explore the concept of geometric abstraction, I felt compelled to take a perfectly interesting quilt top and cut holes in it, then inset some circles.

Click here to read my previous blog post about the making of this quilt.

It’s been very liberating to play with color, line & shape, without the need for my design to represent anything concrete. It’s a risky move for sure, but I just couldn’t move forward until I explored this idea.

Below are a few in progress pics while I was inserting the circles. It’s not a tutorial, but it was more of a journal exercise to write down my thoughts while making this top because it was bold and risky move for moe to even attempt to do something like this, LOL!!

First I started by making a sample circle. This obviously was not going to go in the quilt and I just grabbed some scraps I had lying around to test the technique (ahem… you may see more of these fabrics shown in the circle a bit later this year… just saying!!). I pinned it to the sewn top to see if the scale looked right.

The basic idea is to cut your focus circle 1/2″ larger than your finished size. Then cut a circle into the background that’s 1/2″ smaller than your finished size.

I wanted 12″ finished circles so I drew out 12 1/2″ and 11 1/2″ circles using EQ8 and printed them out on paper, then taped them together. I know there are templates and rulers for this, but since this is all one big experiment I just used the supplies I had on hand.

The hole in the peach background was cut 11 1/2″. The lilac circle was cut 12 1/2″.

By creasing both units you can match up the 4 quadrants and then sew with the background fabric on top. The hardest part is pinning the circle to the background. I used a million pins! There are tons of tutorials on youtube, google, pinterest etc. showing how to insert a circle into a block, using lots of different methods like using freezer paper, glue, etc, but I just went old school with pins.

It’s also super important to heavily press the back and front until it lies flat. With the successful test block complete, I was ready to dive in and start adding circles to my quilt.

I created a bunch of low volume improv units – way more than I needed, but I set aside any leftovers knowing I could probably use them up in some way on the back.

These are actually the wrong side of a bunch of low volume prints from my various collections. I really like the softer effect this gives to the fabric.

I traced out the circle shape onto the pieced background fabric, then very very carefully cut a circle with a super small rotary cutter. I made 3 circles like this with subtle shading. One was all light grays and whites (below), one had the light grays and just a little color (not pictured); the third was all light colors (above).

I pinned the circles roughly in place where I wanted them on the top; but then I needed to trace the smaller 11 1/2″ circle size using a paper template (NOT the 12 1/2″ cut unit), so that I could account for the seam allowances. Now the scary part – cutting holes in the quilt top!

This was a bit scary, but I wanted to take a risk and really explore this idea. The whole time I kept reminding myself it’s just fabric – I can get more!!! I only cut and sewed one hole at a time just in case anything went awry.

Oh no!! There’s a hole in my quilt top, LOL!! By the way there are no tutorials I know of showing how to insert a circle into a whole top, so I just sort of winged it and hoped for the best! I treated the whole top as the background or concave unit and folded it so that the circle was folded in half both ways, first horizontally and then vertically.

I used pins to mark the midpoints of the circle in 4 places. I’ll do the same for the inset circle so that I can match up the pins and they act as my registration marks for proper placement.

Can you see my crease lines? I’ll match up the background pins to circle pins.

Then it was just a matter of subdividing each quadrant evenly and adding more pins to distribute the bulk. I actually looked into the idea of using a freezer paper method as the circle template and sewing on the paper, but it looked way too complicated.

Even though this method used a ton of pins, it made more sense to my brain. Basically I’m sewing wrong sides together and matching up a concave (background) curve with a convex (inset circle) curve. The actual sewing just uses a straight stitch, sewing in a line, but very slowly.

Dealing with the bulk doesn’t bother me because I’m so used to moving a large quilt when I’m domestic machine quilting. It gave me similar happy vibes like that. 🙂

I wasn’t sure about this after I put in one circle, although I was pleased that the technique worked. But by the time I added the 2nd circle I knew it was going to be ok. So if at first you aren’t sure – just keep going!! More than anything I wanted to try out a technique that’s been on my bucket list for years (perhaps decades).

When adding the inset circles I didn’t overthink it. I let the orientation of the circles be random and I’m really pleased with how it turned out.

Thinking ahead to basting and quilting, I’m planning to use a Hobbs Silk batting to quilt it. I like the drape and texture this adds to the quilt. I took a picture of the finished top with the batting I plan to use so I don’t forget!

I have big plans to use up all the leftovers on the back, so stay tuned for the next step! The nice thing about sewing without a deadline is that I can make this quilt on my own time frame. Let me know what you think about my experiment so far. I’m loving inset circles and will definitely do them more in the future!