Hoop Quilt Along Week 4 by AnneMarie Chany

Hoop Quilts Pattern now available. (PDF Download or the Printed Pattern)

Moving right along! It's Week #4 of the Hoop Quilt Along. It's hard to believe this little project is coming together already. Last week, we sewed our curves blocks. Now we're ready to get the mini quilt top together. If you're using fusible fleece like me, this will be a quick one.

To join the HoopQAL, go here (to get the Free Coloring Sheet) and get the Pattern here. (PDF Download or the Printed Pattern)
(It's never too late to join in btw.)

HOOP QUILT ALONG RECAP

Intro Post

Week 1 Gathering Supplies and Choosing Fabric

Week 2 Half-Square Triangles
Week 3 Curve Blocks

Week 4. QUILT TOP ASSEMBLY

Turning our 4 Curve blocks into a quilt top is so simple this week! Simply sew the curves blocks together to create the center circle and add a border. That's IT. Awesome, right?

I think I mentioned earlier that I am using a 14" hoop for this project - even though the directions call out 12", 18" or 24" hoops. I've been following the 12" hoop instructions so far. The one exception is the border strips. In order for the quilt top to be bigger to accommodate the 14" hoop, I cut my border strips at 3" (instead of 2"). Just an FYI if you happen to be working with this size hoop as well.

WHEN TO USE FUSIBLE FLEECE

I looooove to add big stitching and embroidery in lieu of quilting on my hoops. I feel like we are better able to focus on the fabrics and embellishments in the small project if machine quilting is omitted. This is absolutely personal preference. It might take making a few hoops to decide what you like best. *wink*

To keep the two layers together while hand stitching, I use fusible fleece as the second layer. I use Dreamy Fusible High Loft Fleece by Lazy Girl. Because the layers are fused together, I can add as much or as little embellishment as I want without worrying about shift.

Fleece users get off easy this week! Just follow the instructions for applying the fleece and you're done.

WHEN TO USE BATTING

If you are not using fleece, you're going to take some extra time to quilt your project. If you want to quilt this like you would any small quilt, mini, or pillow, you can use your favorite batting as the second layer of this project. You can always add hand stitching on top of your normal quilting. Think about your plan before quilting. If you have any embellishments or hand stitching, this may impact how you quilt the top.

*Note: There are only 2 layers in our quilt sandwich. Even 2 layers is a lot to frame up in the hoop. 3 would be incredibly bulky. But 2 gives the fabric some nice weight behind it.