Making A Double Wedding Ring Quilt

A Double Wedding Ring quilt has been on my to-make list for a long time.  For an equally long time, I've been intimidated by the curved seam contruction needed.  I thought I had found a way around this when I discovered the Quick Curve Ruler and Jenny Pedigo's Metro Rings pattern.  I bought the ruler and experimented; it really does make curves easier.  I bought the Metro Rings pattern but was disappointed because I want my quilt to have rounded edges.  And the contruction method used in the pattern has a lot of seams, including two seams thar run through the blank space in the center of each ring.  This is fine when you quilt densely, which is Jenny Pedigo's aesthetic, but it bothered me. 

I started looking around for other patterns and construction methods.  And by "looking," I mean a major effort on the internet that consumed about 10 hours over three evenings late nights.  I seriously considered the Nouveau Wedding Ring pattern from Eleanor Burns.  This is a completely different construction method that involves using fusible interfacing to back the arcs and applique them to large squares of fabric.  There are no curved seams involved.  The arcs must be stitched down to the backing using a blind stitch or a decorative stitch.  (Quiltsmart sells printed interfacing for this method which is shown in pictures here.)  It seems relatively easy and the examples shown in the hour+ long instuctional video on the Quilt In A Day website look very good.  If the traditional method proves too difficult for me, I will probably switch to this method, but I decided not to go with it initially because I am a masochist craved the challenge of the traditional pieced method.

There are lots of resources online for the traditional pieced method of making DWR.  I decided to buy Marti Michell's set of acrylic templates.  They came with an instructional booklet that is very detailed (27 pages!).  But before I made this final decision, I found two tutorials for traditional piecing.  Free Spirit Fabrics offers a free DWR pattern.  The pattern has you use paper foundations to piece the arcs that form the rings.  The Plaid Scottie hosted a DWR quilt-along using this pattern in 2011 and posted tutorials for each step along the way.  It was reading the tutorials here that convinced me I could do this.  Then I found another tutorial at Jo's Country Junction.  Her quilt is spectacular and she is very reassuring about the construction process.  What is even more reassuring is knowing that as soon as she finished her first DWR, Jo started a second one!



I am a mixture of trepidation and confidence as I start this project. Here's where I am so far - I have about 10 arcs partially pieced. Like Marti said in her instructions, this quilt is not made in an evening!