Current obsession: making as many Simple Cross blocks as I can in one day! Today’s record is five in one afternoon! Woo!
This has become quite an unexpected Work-In-Progress that I’m thoroughly enjoying! I love rummaging through my basket of solid fabrics and choosing the next bright colour to work with and then matching it with a fab print fabric!
I can’t decide whether to keep it as a simple nine block lap quilt (as it is now) or to keep adding more blocks to it turning it either into a 16 block quilt or a 20 to 24 block mega quilt! What do you think?? I would love your opinion! Currently the quilt top measures: 32″ (82cm) squared without the blocks being pieced together…
To be honest, I really wouldn’t mind turning it into a 20 to 24 block quilt… The block is super simple and deadly quick to cut and whip up. And goodness knows I have enough fabric to do the job! Even now I have a bunch of print fabrics in mind that could go so well with the rest of the aesthetic this quilt top has going for it! Yay! Such fun!
Here’s just a quick update on my colour-block paper foundation pieced Log Cabins (phew what a mouth-full!).
I snuck in some time during the week to finish the brown, grey and black blocks and then continued on piecing them all together with the sashing.
While I was on a roll, I pieced together the backing too!
Pieced Back All Ready To Go!
Then I found the perfect size batting in my stash for this mini-quilt! Bonus! After it’s quilted, I’ll bind it with the same cream fabric used for the squares in the sashing.
At the moment, I haven’t had to spend any money on making this quilt; it purely consists of scraps and fabric I had hoarded away for a rainy day!
I’ve never made a mini-quilt before. Regardless to say, I love it! Cheap, small and quick to make! What’s not to love?!
Colourplay – a nifty new name that I have christened this latest quilt with…
I think it fits the bill, don’t you think?
I didn’t have the patience to iron it before I took these piccys or even to trim some of the stray threads hanging off it – but I’ll deal with that when I begin to quilt it.
It took a little under a week to sew all 122 squares together. I battled through 46C heat one day and ferocious thunderstorms the next, all the while ensuring each square was in the correct position, each seam was pressed the right way and that I had enough space on my living room floor as the quilt grew bigger and bigger every time I finished each section.
Okay…
Reader Beware: this next paragraph highlights dangerously the quilting geek and the true simpleton that I really am!
As I was constructing this quilt together I took simple pleasure in the way that the seams both front and back were falling together and marrying-up to each other…
See here this photo:
My heart strangely skipped a beat when I saw all these seam lines on the back of the quilt joining together in a harmonious yet quiet way, all to achieve the clean and crisp surface of the blocks coming together.
It’s these simple moments, these glimpses of something great coming together that make my tragic little heart swell with pride and happiness, initiating my love for patchwork and quilting!
This is my other favourite…
Yeah, total geek I know!
Moving on from that embarrassing inner confession, I’ve begun my first embroidery projects for 2013 starting with this darling Bunny, embroidered on vintage cotton linen…
Currently I’m working on a design of a red phone booth (also on vintage cotton linen) synonymous of any London street, thus suppressing and soothing my obsession of all things London-slash-Britishy!
I’ve also been playing around with a very rough stitch sampler in an attempt to stretch my range of stitching skills from just back-stitch and slip-stitch.
I slipped and fumbled through a cable-stitch, chain-stitch, opened chained-stitch, a twisted chain-stitch, couching, chevron and herringbone stitch as well as my favourite – French knots…
I love french knots!
My handy guide to accomplishing these tricky stitches was The Stitch Bible written by Kate Haxell who trained in the master art of embroidery at the Royal School of Needlework (RSN) in Surrey, UK.
The RSN offers my dream course to study – a degree in Hand Embroidery! I would jump on a plane this instant if I was a millionaire and could afford to live and study over in the UK! Do dreams ever really do come true??
Anyway….
Back to reality and back to my Colourplay quilt – hopefully by the end of the week I’ll be in the processes of buying some batting and suitable backing fabric to begin quilting. I just hope the last of the extreme hot-hot weather has ended and that I won’t bake under a-175cm-squared-half-finished quilt!
Before I begin: Merry (belated) Christmas and may you have a safe and very creative New Year!
So after a while away from my sewing machine and me, horribly neglecting my blog, I have made my return!
A few projects have been going down: I made a sweet little cot quilt for my third nephew, Noah, who was born 22nd December. It features a lovely jungle/animal theme and a simple square block pattern that incorporates different colours and prints.
This photo is of the quilt mid construction and not the finished product – but you get the idea of how sweet it is!
Now that I’m holiday from my studies I’ve had loads of time to play around with some quilt tops, experimenting with line, shape, colour and texture. At the moment both are unfinished but (I think) have potential to either be sold or even entered into some local quilt shows(?).
In my ever growing fabric stash, I have this full bolt of a very yummy, vibrant and juicy allover blackberry print fabric and I’m trying desperately to figure out what I can do with it! So here I’ve paired it with a plain white homespun and a matching green-on-green leaf print fabric and simply just played around with shape and line to achieve a sort of contemporary quilt top design. I’ve used the blackberry print as the backing and will possibly use it for the binding as well.
I love spots! Anything with delicate, sweet and ornate white spots with a contrasting coloured background I just adore! So rumaging through my endless stash of spotty fabrics I discovered these wonderful deep coloured spottys and thought they really complemented each other paired with some white homespun (you can never have enough or use enough white homespun!). I’ve began to sew 2.5inch strips of the spottys together to make a very trippy striped backing fabric and will finish it off by binding it with the greeny/teal spotty print.
I wanted to find the right kind of block pattern that would really show off the vibrancy of the colours working together next to each other and think the ‘Rail Fence’ design suits it very well!
So that’s it at the moment. Amongst all the festive prep and celebrating, I haven’t had much time to dedicate my time to my sewing machine. However, as usual, there are many more ideas ready to be explored and much more inspiration to be discovered!
3and3quarters 