Showing posts with label patchwork. Show all posts
Showing posts with label patchwork. Show all posts

Wednesday, 11 November 2015

finished flimsy

In September, DD and the Grandsons came to visit for two weeks – which was wonderful. It seems so much longer than five weeks since they left. After his experience at Easter time, Older Grandson wanted to sew! This time, Younger Grandson wanted to sew too – but the truth is, he just wanted to be allowed to play with the buttons and dials on my sewing machine!

Older Grandson decided that since he had made blocks from strips last time, this time he was going to make blocks from squares. He chose my container of 3” squares. There was no way that I was going to be left making a quilt entirely from 5” four-patch blocks (b-o-r-i-n-g), so I looked through a book which I later gave to DD (so I can’t tell you what it was called – WM found it at work and brought it home in case I was interested in it) and decided to make a block comprised of two four patches and two units containing half-square triangles. In the unknown book, the block is called “Road to California” but in my “Encyclopaedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns” by Barbara Brackman, the block with this name is a nine-patch block. I couldn't find the block we were making in the Brackman “encyclopaedia” but I eventually found it on EQ7 as “Road to Oklahoma”. The version we made has a light square in the corner where EQ7 has a dark square but, essentially, it is the same block.

OG quickly lost interest when he realised that more care had to be taken when choosing a light square and a dark square (as opposed to randomly selecting any strip) and aligning them carefully before sewing them together. He also realised that all his younger brother was doing was pushing the start/stop button and so that’s what he decided to do too! Therefore, I really can’t say this time that the blocks were made by either grandson. DD, too, lost interest because of the matching of points that has to take place – she’s a perfectionist and if it wasn't exactly right she got frustrated (I can live with a millimetre or two out!) So, in essence, I made the entire flimsy.

At first, I really didn't like it. The lights and darks weren't working as I thought they should. It just seemed too scrappy, too disordered; I like scrappy but need it to be controlled somehow -- usually by the pattern of lights and darks, and this just didn't seem to be coming together. I still don’t have a design wall so I have to use the floor to see what I'm making. Because the blocks were ten inches finished, I needed to have five and a half blocks across and six and a half blocks down to make the flimsy within the size requirements of our quilt group. I, therefore, could see no other way to set the blocks but “straight”; that is, every block (or half block) facing exactly the same way. If I’d had an even number of blocks both ways, there all kinds of permutations on EQ7 that I could have used. But it was not to be!

What is surprising is how quickly this came together; especially considering there 715 pieces in this quilt top. I really didn't want to work on it but had to keep moving the finished blocks and part-blocks every time I wanted to do something else (like play the piano or use the computer). So I bit the bullet and got to work on it. It took three days but I finally completed it last Thursday. So, here for your viewing pleasure, is my Road to Whoopi flimsy. (“Whoopi” is the nickname given by the locals to Woolgoolga, the town where DD, SIL and the grandsons live). Don’t look too closely then you won’t see all the places where the points don’t match exactly! ;-)
2015 R2W flimsy

It’s not by favourite quilt by any means but, seen in this photograph, the lights and darks are working as they should and the extreme scrappiness is under control. I think I'll quilt it with a light thread through the diagonal light squares (going down from left to right) and with a darker thread through the diagonal dark squares (going the opposite way). But first, of course, I have to make a backing.

Hopefully, I'll be back sooner rather than later to show you either the finished quilt or some photos of our garden or of the grandsons on their recent visit.

In the meantime, may your stitching bring you joy.

Thursday, 23 July 2015

there is work in progress

At Easter, DD and the family came to visit – it was so good to be able to spend time with them again; especially since DD and I got to spend some time together in the sewing room. Older Grandson helped to sort scraps and it wasn't long until he wanted to sew too. He loved sitting on my lap and feeding fabric in to the machine that was running on the slowest speed possible. At the end of the weekend, we had nineteen scrappy quarter-log cabin blocks of varying sizes made (they weren’t square and ranged in size from 9” to 11.5”). Unfortunately, I didn’t thing to take photos of the blocks that we made but I do have some photos of Older Grandson hard at work!
 2015-04-03 Ben sews on machine 2 2015-04-03 Ben sews on the machine 2015-04-03 Ben irons

In May, it was announced at our quilting group that there was going to be a log cabin challenge for all of us to use up scraps! Seems like I was already ahead of the game! LOL

I searched the internet for inspiration – I had absolutely no idea how to put those blocks together given their different sizes and shapes. But sometimes, I just have to be patient and let ideas percolate. In the end I decided to go with a wonky setting but I still had no idea how to go about it. I started looking at tutorials, but all the ones I found were for making sashing on all four sides of he block. I wanted to add sashing on only two sides. In the end, I found my own away to do it – the wider you cut the sashing and the more fabric you are prepared to ‘waste’, the better this works. Again, it didn’t occur to me to take photos of my work in progress – you can see how out of the habit of preparing for blog posts I have become!

Armed with twenty blocks (I made the extra one), I headed to class at my LQS. They have a design wall – I do not! My teacher, who loves traditional patterns and Civil War fabrics, is quite bemused by me sometimes, I think! Here I was with a totally radical modern approach to quilt blocks and I hadn’t even consulted a pattern! I did take a photo of my layout on the design wall but have since deleted in from my iPad – because I’ve finished the quilt top. Here it is for your enjoyment:
 finished front

I have also finished the backing.
finished back

The fabric used for the sashing and the backing is Saffron Craig’s Ginkgo Blossoms (c.2009). I used about three and half metres to make this quilt which will finish at 52” x 64” and is made up of twenty 12” blocks plus extra sashing down one side and across the bottom.
This one is basted and in the process of being quilted.

While I was on a roll, I made the backing for another quilt which I had finished in October last year.
on design wall

It is made from ‘Disappearing Nine Patch’ blocks with one modification – I made the neutral pieces of the nine patch smaller than the coloured parts; thus giving a thinner sashing than would otherwise be seen.
ready to cut and disappear

Here is the finished backing, containing my signature panel. the blue sashing gives a completely different look to the neutrals on the front! I have laid the blocks differently too – to form a type of ladder. The backing fabric is a small yellow check, not the solid it appears in the larger photo.
 finished back backing fabric
My sewing time is taken up with quilting the Wonky Log Cabin quilt; then I’ll get to the Scrappy Disappearing Nine Patch.

In the meantime, my knitting time is spent trying to catch up with my mum who is powering ahead knitting blanket strips. Come back for my next post and see another of her knitted blankets that I have finished.

I'm linking this post with WiP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced blog. Why not pop over and see what other crafters are up to?

May your stitches bring you much joy.
Lynne

Sunday, 19 July 2015

Violet & Friends and the Scrappy Churn Dash

No, it’s not the name of a new children's book or television program. The title is a combination of two of my finished quilts: “Violet & Friends” and “Scrappy Churn Dash” (see what a difference punctuation makes! LOL)

Violet and Friends was begun in 2011 when I first joined the Rainbow Scrap Challenge over at SoScrappy blog. It continued in 2012 as I made more blocks. Finally I had enough six-inch crumb blocks to make a quilt top in violet, orange, pink, yellow, teal and green. I shared a picture of the finished top and the backing panel (it’s my signature to use panels on the back of my quilts) in a post in February last year – obviously I can’t rush into finishing! LOL

This year, I seem to have caught some kind of ‘finishing bug’; instead of starting new projects (so easy to do), I’ve been finishing old ones. Perhaps having mum here is a reminder than one day I may not be able to quilt (or knit) – and I wouldn't want DD to inherit lots of unfinished projects. I inherited three knitting projects of mum’s – one I’ve ripped and re-purposed the yarn (into part of one of mum’s blankets); the other two I’m thinking I’ll turn into one blanket instead of the two that were originally intended.

At Easter, I chose a fabric for the backing and hey presto! A week later, Violet and Friends was finished: quilted, bound and labelled!
 finished quilt front  finished quilt back
The quilting was inspired by two classes I took on Craftsy: one was “Creative Quilting with your Walking Foot”, tutored by  Jacquie Gering; the other was “Dot to Dot Quilting” with Angela Waters. Angela’s class was basically about FMQ but I took her ideas and meshed them with Jacquie’s ideas and came up with my own walking foot diamonds (I tried FMQ but I can’t do it to my satisfaction – yet!).
 V&F custome quilting
It’s custom quilting and, in my opinion, looks great!

The other project in the title, Scrappy Churn Dash, was also started as a ‘Rainbow Scrap Challenge’ project. In January this year, the colour for the month was blue. I had always wanted to make churn dash blocks so made 4.5” squares for the centres. Then I chose a solid chocolate-brown (most people think it’s black) homespun for the churn dash – brown because it is a shade of orange, the complementary colour of blue, this given some warmth to what could have been a very cold-looking quilt. You can see the story of these blocks here in this post from January 2015.
 finished quilt front
I have several metres of one particular blue fabric so the choice for the backing was pretty easy. I only had to make my signature panel. What I had in mind was to ‘float’ churn dashes over the background but the fabrics I chose don’t stand out enough -- I probably should have gone for light colours rather than darks because this medium tone fabric is obviously darker than I think!
  finished quilt  back 
Anyway, the backing came together quickly and the quilting was done using my new quilting signature – diamonds! This involved more custom-quilting that took a very long time considering there are sixteen four inch squares, eighteen half squares, twelve diamonds, fourteen half diamonds, and four quarter diamonds that were all individually quilted. The only parts that aren’t quilted are the churn dash motifs themselves and the squares in the centre of each churn dash – my teacher and the owner of my LQS both agreed there was more than enough quilting on there to hold the layers in place! It is a donation quilt, after all, and my time is better spent making another quilt than in over-quilting!
BCCD custom quiltingBCCD custom quilting from back

My quilts measure about 52” by 64”, so there is quite a lot of turning of the quilt in the quilting process; just as well I bought a machine that has a largish throat! The downside of custom quilting, apart from having to turn the quilt a lot, is all the ends that have to be sewn in when the quilting’s done!
And before I go, I just have to show you my sunglasses case that I also finished in March
sunglasses case
and my zipper pouch with box corners that I finished in April.
lingerie zipper pouch lingerie zipper pouch inside and out   lingerie zipper pouch box corner

Putting a zipper in is not as difficult as I thought and I look forward to trying some more – I watched several tutorials and think I’ll try this one from Jenny Doan of Missouri Star Quilting Company next.


The sunglasses pouch was made from a tutorial by Gourmet Quilter. I’m not entirely happy with mine but I can see ways of improving on the next one!


After Scrappy Churn Dash was done, I took a few week’s break from quilting and patchwork to work on some family history but now I’m back in to the stitching groove and will be back soon to show you my works in progress. Look for that post next week; Thursday at the latest as I link up with WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced blog.

Until then, may your stitching bring you much joy.

Saturday, 28 March 2015

finishes!

I’m linking this post with Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday which, this week, is being hosted by Janet at Simply Pieced blog.

Last week, before I went away, I managed to get the binding on my teacher’s donated quilt and to hand sew it down. The trickiest part of the project then loomed – getting all the pencil marks out of the border. I’m not sure how long they had been there but my teacher intimated that it had been a while. I rubbed Amway’s LOC into every inch of that border by hand; it took ages. Then I put it in my front-loading washing machine, prayed and let the machine do its thing! An hour later, I hung it on the line – there was not a pencil mark in sight! Praise the Lord!

Sometimes I look at the binding fabric and wonder if I made the right choice. It’s a green and beige stripe; I think it’s a Debbie Mumm fabric. The green is very similar to the greens in the quilt but, because the beige stripe and the green stripe are the same width, from a distance it reads as a muddy light khaki colour!  Up close it looks fine but from further away: well, I’m not so sure. However, it’s done and I’m not going to change it – mostly because I didn’t have any other more suitable fabric here to use! The photo shows my first quilting of a curved line using my walking foot and following a pattern.
 Kerrie's quilt 2 quilting and binding

So, may I present K.’s finished quilt (remember, I didn’t make it; I only quilted the border, bound it and washed it). Unfortunately, the colours are a bit washed out -- the photo above shows the real intensity of the colours.
Kerrie's quilt 2 faded colours

But wait, there’s more…

Yesterday afternoon, I joined the pre-cut binding strips and attached the binding to my Jacob’s Ladder Goes Barn Raising quilt. Last night, as mum and WM watched the football (rugby league), I sewed the binding down. This afternoon I sewed down the two sides of the label that weren’t held down by the binding.

So, for your further viewing pleasure, may I present another finish:
 Jacobs Ladder finished Jacobs LAdder back shows quilting

And in knitting news (drum roll please!)…

Last December I started knitting a bear for my great-niece at the request of my niece who bought the pattern and sent it to me. It was a very fiddly knit; lots of teeny-tiny pieces. When I pulled it out last week, I could not figure out where I was up to so decided to start at the beginning of the pattern and put all those little pieces together as directed (I had knitted them on a long train journey and didn’t have the things I needed to sew it together at the time). The head (seen left of photo ) seemed way too big for the body but I proceeded anyway!
charley bear

Surprisingly, it came together much better than I thought it would. I sat in the hairdresser's shop last Friday morning (20 March) waiting for mum to have her hair set and worked on the legless bear  and left home (for the wedding) last Friday with a bear that just needed some final adjustments. On Saturday, by the time we needed to have lunch and get ready for the wedding, I had got it to the point where I had to add only one more eye and some paw prints on one foot. I procrastinated on that second eye for a couple of days – I really dislike embroidering faces on knitted toys – if the eyes are wrong the whole thing is wrong! the pattern called for buttons but I don’t sew buttons on toys for two-year-old children I prayed and took courage – and it turned out much better than I’d even dared hope! I am very, very pleased with how this turned out!

2015 Charley Bear

The greatest compliment came when my niece said “it’s Charley Bear” and my sister came to have a look. She almost reeled in shock when she realised I had knitted it! Charley Bear is a TV character for under-fours. Here’s a clip for those not familiar with the show (I have grandsons so I’ve seen it many times).


I’m hoping to see another quilted finish and another knitted finish before next weekend! Hey, when you’re on a roll … LOL

Sunday, 1 March 2015

saying goodbye to pink

It hasn’t been a very productive month, sewing-wise, for me. In the middle of the month, my uncle, who has been researching my paternal family for many years, sent me some information from a distant relative that neither of us has met. At first I only glanced at it, then I decided to read it, then I compared it to the information I had in my family tree. I was hooked! I spent all my days working on my family history – refining and adding. I’m an “all or nothing” kind of gal; when I get involved in something I don’t do it by halves; and so (almost) the rest of month passed without a stitch of sewing!

I did, however, do some knitting! Don’t fall down in shock! Last Saturday, I had to attend a meeting of the local branch of the Knitters’ Guild (I was tutoring on ‘planned pooling’) so knitting was needed! I cast on a sock during the meeting and finished on Friday afternoon. I don’t normally knit during daylight hours but I had dropped a couple of stitches and couldn’t see by the poor light in our living room to pick them up so I had to do it while the sun was shining! And, as luck would have it, the sock is knitted in Moda Vera Noir (a sock yarn) in the colour way “pink mix”!

2015 Sock for Someonr #8

 

I say “luck” because pink was the colour for this month’s the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. At four o’clock yesterday afternoon, I settled into my sewing room. I had told myself that I would spend an hour cutting and sorting but that just depressed me – after two weeks away from my sewing room (I didn't even attend class last Monday because I had a raging headache) I just wanted to sew. Knowing that it was the last day of ‘pink’, I decided to use my pink crumbs and have some fun. I started out with the intention of making 4.5”  squares and just started sewing crumbs of roughly the same length (on one edge) together. Then I sewed those pairs to other pairs and, in the end, decided I would just sew them together “free-form style” (a knitting term; I guess it’s just a form of crazy patchwork!). I deliberately cut things on strange angles – nothing mattered to me except stitching straight lines (so everything would lay flat at the end) and making sure I had a minimum of a quarter inch seam allowance (some seams are a bit wider wider)!

I finished with a rectangular piece of fabric (15” x 9.5”) that is made up of about 70 pieces of fabric! It will go on the back of a quilt – at least that’s the plan till I suss out the situation in my quilting group: will a truly modern quilt be acceptable? The next piece of ‘crazy’ patchwork will have even more odd angles – the ones I’ve cut here barely show in the finished piece! The bottom right side is looking really good! That’s what I was aiming for!

2015 70 piece jigsaw

So it’s goodbye to pink sewing for now (I will knit the other sock – I don’t like Second Sock Syndrome! Besides, sometimes my tension/gauge changes if I leave too much time between the first and second sock).

Autumn began here today so I’d go for for red, brown, orange or yellow as the colour for March! But Angela, who hosts the challenge, lives in Florida and there’s no chance she’s thinking of Fall now! I’ve just checked…

…it’s yellow!

 

RSC 15

Are you participating in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge? Even if you’re not, why not pop over to Angela’s blog and see what other’s are up to with their pink scraps.

Thursday, 12 February 2015

pretty (scrappy) in pink –- a work in progress

Deb, who blogs at A Simple Life Quilts, and I were email-chatting the other day about quilts in progress. I mentioned that I had a pink and purple row-by-row quilt in progress and should pull it out, given that the colour for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for this month is pink.

This is the story:

Last year, I wanted to learn curved piecing in my quilting class; at the time pink was the colour of the month. I chose to make scrappy pink blocks (hey, why not try something a little more complicated when you're learning a new technique? LOL) So I made these blocks based on an idea in Scrap Republic by Emily Cier. Each of those Drunkard's Path blocks is 4.5”.
curved piecing completed
I laid them out in a traditional style Drunkard’s Path meander but I didn’t like it so I turned them into circles (as the photo above suggested).
circle blocks completed
I realised I didn't like making four-inch curved blocks enough to make a whole quilt so what was I to do? Make a row-by-row quilt, of course.

Some of my classmates and I went on to do foundation piecing: it  was still February so guess what colour I used for my foundation piecing?

Here are the four blocks I’ve made so far:
first four foundation blocks 10 Feb 2015

I still have two more to make; they will have the same fabric in the centre. Then I’m not sure whether or how I will sash them.

At home during February, I thought I would use some more of my pink scraps in a new-to-me piecing style: tumbler blocks – here are the first five joined
first column of tumblers joined

and here they are on my design wall (at the old house) in the layout I had chosen:
2014 pink tumblers

Since then I’ve realised I need to go wider with only five rows of blocks (hence the five joined together above).

Kate, who blogs at Kate’s Quilting (and other arty stuff), and I shared a couple of emails about scrappy quilts generating more scraps and that was certainly true of my Drunkard’s Path blocks – there were a lot of scraps left over. So what would I do with them? Turn them into improv crumb piecing, of course!
first pink blocks first purple
They’ll go on the back of the pink and purple row-by-row quilt; I can’t help sneaking a bit of ‘modern’ piecing into the backs of my quilts (look here for an example). Because most of them go to older people in palliative care units, we tend to be fairly traditional in our quilt making – but I always put a signature panel in the back of mine which tends to be a bit modern looking! This probably won’t be so much a panel as scattered; like this one (Icy Improv Pods by Elizabeth Hartmann of Oh! Fransson) or this one (though not as detailed as this which is Faraway Fields by fellow-Australian, Jules, of Procrasticraft).

So, this row-by-row is the project I’m adding to during this month of pink; and also in the month we have purple in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

I’ll be linking this post to Scraptastic Tuesday at Mrs Sew and Sow, WiP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced blog, Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation and the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) at So Scrappy blog as they go live this week.
WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced Scraptastic Tuesday
Needle and Thread Thursday
RSC 15
Are you joining any of these linky parties this week?


Tuesday, 10 February 2015

it’s February and some people’s thoughts turn to hearts

This is not the story of a finished quilt, so I hope Val will forgive me – but the Tuesday Archives link-up at Val’s Quilting  Studio looks like so much fun, I couldn’t help wanting to be a part of it.
Val's Quilting Studio

I have to say, this soon-to-quilt-top is one of my favourite projects ever and I’ve blogged about it several times but it’s never had it’s own post.

In 2011, DD and I , with two month old Younger Grandson, made the hour and a half trek across Sydney for the inaugural meeting of what was to become the Sydney Modern Quilt Guild (now the Sydney Modern Quilt Group). We needed a hand-stitching project to keep us busy (well, DD had her hands full anyway) during the three hour meet-up. I had recently acquired an Accuquilt Go! Baby and had been keen to try it out.
opened ready for use

I’m glad I learnt how to do fused appliqué in the few quilting classes I had taken at that point. I had also done embroidery in my past which, of course, included blanket stitch. Putting the two skills together, I was able to work on some of these:
2012 Sep 6 two hearts done

Over the years, DD and I carried appliquéd hearts to meetings of the Caring Hearts Community Quilters and eventually I had thirty blocks done. But they were only 6” (yes, I was a new quilter and forgot to add seam allowance when cutting the squares) so I needed more blocks – or I needed to enlarge them somehow.

Inspiration came from two sources: a chance overhearing of a comment from someone in our quilting group  on the merits of appliqué and/or scrap quilts; the other from the Dresden wedding quilt made by Jess at A Quilty Habit.

I enlarged my blocks and  made them scrappy!
2013 red block with border

And I worked on the layout until I came up with this:
blocks done and final layout

So, the obvious question is: if I love these blocks and this layout so much; why has the project stalled?  Well, firstly, we moved house! That slowed all projects down for several months! But, more importantly, I know I need to add white sashing between the blocks but I'm not sure how I want to quilt it (using a walking foot; FMQ is out of the question for now). I think I want to echo quilt around the hearts but dragging the whole quilt though my domestic machine (even though I have a 9” harp space) doesn't inspire me so I’m considering QAYG row-by-row (gasp!)

What would you do if you were a novice quilter with little FMQ ability?

Wednesday, 7 January 2015

works in progress

Everything I have been working on this week is not originally my project. However, they all need to be completed for the Airing in April so I had to get them done, sooner rather than later. Most of my own projects are at the basting stage and I need to make a trip to my LQS to use the big table there for that process so now was as good a time as any to work on other people’s projects!

Here’s what I've been working on (or plan to work on) this week:
  1. four patch quilt – to be bound and labelled
  2. triangle brights and flowers – to be bound and labelled
  3. pink brights and gingham – backing required
  4. K’s project – quilt, bind and label (binding supplied)
  5. QAYG string blocks – 14 more blocks needed
At our community quilting group, when projects go to the long-arm quilter, there must be a top and a backing. When projects come back from the quilters (who volunteer their time to help us), the project is usually given back to the original maker to bind. Sometimes the original creator is not there – either they are a member who is absent that day or the quilt top was donated.

Projects #1 and #2 came back from the quilter but the original makers were not there so I ended up with the quilts to bind and label.

For some reason, the member who donated project #3 did not provide a backing so I was asked to make one.

Project #4 was donated to our group by my quilting teacher – the quilt sandwich is made so the trickiest part is done for me!

I have already made a quilt from the donated QAYG string blocks (project #5) but I still have 28 x 9” blocks left. That’s not enough to make a quilt in the size required in our group so I will have to make some more blocks which shouldn't be too much of a hardship given the number of scraps around here!

So, how has my week gone so far?

MONDAY
I didn't do any cutting or sewing: the heat/humidity has stopped me sleeping well and I was too tired to use my rotary cutter and sewing machine safely! Instead, I auditioned fabrics for bindings for projects #1 and #2, both 280” around.
 2017 binding fabrics
Then I read a novel in a day! It was The Dancing Master by Julie Klassen – historical, romantic (Christian) fiction. Ms Klassen has been described as a ‘modern day Jane Austen’ – I’m not so sure but it was a light, enjoyable read.

TUESDAY
I auditioned fabric for the backing of project #3 then put the fabric in the washing machine (on the  ‘easy iron’ setting) because it was stiff and very creased. It’s the same pink fabric in the photo above.
I cut the binding strips, joined them and made binding for both quilts. I then made labels for both quilts from leftover triangle scraps (note to self: write the label after attaching it to the quilt – or write smaller!).
2015 label for Triangles Brights and Flowers
I had to watch a video on binding, because I haven’t bound a quilt for over a year and couldn't remember how to start! Thank goodness for YouTube and all the generous video makers! Eventually, I attached the binding and label to project #1 and began the task of hand-stitching the binding down – I got a little more than halfway (the quilt is 280” around) before it was time for bed!
What looks like a brown and white check is actually tiny white stars on a brown background; which I didn’t notice until I’d already cut the binding strips. It doesn't look like a good choice with that blue backing; but the quilt was mostly browns – here’s a hint (see the checked fabric in the block?:
2015 binding Four Patch not mine hint of front
WEDNESDAY
I started writing this post before I got on with attaching the binding and label to project #2, then I watched another video on mitred corners because mine just weren’t working! They are fine on the front but the back is terrible! I attached the label to the quilt then started sewing on the binding. I got to the second corner and realised there was a hole in the fabric, eight on the fold line of the binding. I had to undo twenty inches so I could remove the hole – it was close to a join in the binding strip – and rejoin the strip. I was about to start sewing again when I realised I was attaching the binding to the back of the quilt! *sigh* 

If it were my quilt, I might have been tempted to keep going but it isn’t and I couldn’t take the risk of bad corners on the front of someone else’s quilt so I spent more than thirty minutes un-sewing the rest of the binding! :-(

Things improved somewhat; I got the binding on eventually. It’s not perfect but it really is the lest I can do. After pressing the binding (I can’t remember ever doing that before but I think I must have – my teacher is very big on pressing) I moved onto project #3.

Piecing a backing involves a bit of maths and, for me at least, the rough drawing of diagrams. Eventually I had it sorted and went to find some strips to join my pieces together – I can’t help myself; it has become my signature to have a panel or some sashing on the back of my quilts. This isn’t mine but I did it anyway. I cut the pieces for the sashing and for the backing. There was some more reverse sewing after I sewed the right side of one piece to the wrong side of another piece but, all in all, with the help of lots of pins, I got the backing finished.
2015 backing for Joyce's quilt
What looks like an off-what fabric is actually a very pale pink. It has some lovely details on the fabric which, of course, can only be viewed close up.
2015 backing for Joyce's quilt detail
Because I have so many other projects to quilt in the near future, and because I think J. would like this quilt in this year’s Airing, I am not going to attempt to quilt it myself. I will pass the backing and the flimsy on to our coordinator, who will in turn, pass it on to one of the long-arm quilters. If I feel so inclined, I may even make the binding to go with the quilt. I’m thinking I’ll make it out of the same fabric as the back – I have some binding left from project #2 and lots of that fabric left. I’ll think on it – it may be too much having the same binding as backing fabric.

THE REST OF THE WEEK
So, here it is, Wednesday evening, which still leaves me two full days to work on the other two projects and to get the binding done on projects #1 and #2. I’m linking this post with WiP Wednesday over at Lee’s blog, Freshly Pieced.
WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced
What about you? Are you crafting this week or is something else occupying your time?