The tale of the electrifying quilt

A tale of good and evil

The relevance of this title and the above chocolate beast will become apparent. 

So, hot on the heels of my first quilt, I went straight onto planning my next. This included speculating about colour schemes on Twitter. The lovely Florence politely inquired about the progress of my original quilt, you know, this one from LAST FEBRUARY. You see, that quilt has been in the back of my mid for some time. I lost some vital pieces for a while, giving me the perfect excuse to down tools. But when I found them and then realised the batting left over from the last quilt was the perfect size for this one, there was no excuse. (It is worth mentioning that I have a last couple of copies of this quilt pattern here).

I had thought I would make a few more blocks, but even at cot size, it was perfect for a single bed and it seemed a waste to make it bigger only to have to fold it up. I had a fair bit of trepidation about sewing all the blocks together, I think I managed to stretch the voile whilst sewing the curved pieces, it wasn't the ideal fabric to use, but I love it so, I just had too. The blocks were quite irregular, but after a bit of trimming I was surprised that they all fitted together OK.

good cat

Lying it on the floor ready to layer together made it a magnet for the animals, again. I appreciate my posts have been a bit puppy heavy lately. She still has novelty value and it's quite hard to do anything without her appearing an inch from my nose or feet. This strikes me as a s good time to explain why the quilt is electrifying.

bad puppy

I sew at our kitchen table, carefully packing everything away when I finish, it's a bit of a faff, but anything to avoid the kids knocking over a pot of pins of finding the dog eating my scissors. However whilst sewing the quilt, I looked down for the dog who is usually sleeping and inch from my toes, to see her chewing the power cable of my sewing machine. I won't share with you the bad words I said to that dog (my husband has since suggested I could write a whole blog post dedicated to my imaginative and often derisory names for the dog, but I think I know it would offend.) Thankfully she was fine, however the power cord is broken through and I'm not convinced it is safe. So I am left searching for an expensive replacement pedal for what was a cheap sewing machine when I bought it over 10 years ago. Maybe this is a good excuse to upgrade?

Anyway, rant over. Here is the finished quilt, my favourite bit is the shape made by the red and blue pieces, it really stands out making me realise that I must think harder about contrast in my next quilt.

this is the bit I like

My least favourite part is the quilting, even though I prefer minimal quilting, it's such a tedious part of the whole process. I only sewed around the circles of the flowers, that was enough. One part I really like though is hand stitching the binding, hiding away the rough edges and framing all that work. It's so very satisfying. I used a strip of this Anna Maria Horner fabric, as I wanted something quite, but not completely, plain. I love that if you look closely, you can see the cross-stitch pattern which varies along the length, perhaps I should have embroidered a bit of it. Next time.

This quilt was always intended for my daughter and as she recognises the fabric, I had it carefully folded when doing the hand-stitching so that she couldn't see it. When sat side by side on the sofa, she spotted the fabric and said 'I recognise that fabric, what are you making?" my vague white lie prompted that expression on her face I saw rather a lot of around Father Christmas time. One of not quite believing what her old mum was saying. I didn't manage to finish it before she went to bed, but was just sewing the last few stitches as she shouted down for a hot water bottle. I promised her something else that would keep her warm and unfurled it on her bed. The response was rather overwhelming (I don't really expect a 7 year old to find a quilt that exciting, even if it has taken a year to make and nearly killed off the dog in the process).

an army of pink toys, be afraid

Here it is on her bed, along with her impressive army of cuddly toys, this isn't even all of them - do all kids have this many? I think her little brother may be forming an equally well manned army of toys in the room next door. They all have hilarious, confusing and constantly changing names.

So, some valuable lessons learnt here. Don't take too long to finish a project, or you may never. Listen to the wise words of your friends, and puppies are evil destroyers of random expensive household objects fluffy.

Work in progress...

A while back, I started on my Gathering Flowers Quilt. Some of my blog readers may be too young to remember this.

I'm pleased to report that I have been making some progress lately. My main motivation has been making sure I cut out all the pieces of fabric I need before Innocent Crush sells out. I have been sewing in the evening when the kids are in bed. There are issues with this as I will demonstrate.

Spot the mistake? Let me make it easier for you.

Look at block number 2. Those of you who know me can probably imagine that I did utter a few well chosen bad words when I noticed this. I had even said to myself that I must check it before sewing because wouldn't it be frustrating to spot a mistake at this stage? Well, it was, very frustrating. In the future I will listen to that particular voice in my head.

I was further hampered by the fact I used my seam ripper last week for a spot of DIY and snapped the pointy bit off, making unpicking stitches very tedious.

But we learn by our mistakes, second time round I was extra careful. And here they are all shiny and perfect.

I need to make 2 more of these as I'm making a cot bed sized quilt 6 x 2. Neither of my kids are in cot beds (or ever were for that matter, straight from a cot to a massive single bed) but it seemed more achievable at this size.

Now that I finally have more than 2 blocks, I can think about how they will go together.

I think I prefer the latter, it's less perfect. Kind of how this quilt is turning out. I love the squares is creates and the rings of the petals which could have been paler to stand out more in hindsight.

So now I am back on track with this quilt, I'm hoping to finish it before it's intended recipient reaches her teens. She is currently 6 so I am feeling fairly confident.

Breaking news: quilting is fun

I made an unexpected discovery these last few weeks. Quilting is fun. And I think it may just catch on, pretty soon you will all be blogging about this new quilting craze. You already are? fair enough, I suppose it has been around for centuries after all.

I have been making my first few tentative steps into quilt making starting with the gathering flowers pattern that I mentioned a while back after I was inspired by this picture.

Image from http://annamariahorner.blogspot.com

So far I have just been cutting out the pieces and deciding which fabrics to use. The block in the pattern uses 2 sets of colours but looking at the one that Anna Maria Horner made, she used all sorts of different colours. And I like that less structured approach, also it means I get to choose a lot more combinations which is F.U.N.

So instead of 2 sets, I am using 4. Reading the post about this particular quilt, Anna Maria said that she had used a dark, medium and light tone fabric in each section and wished that she had switched the lightest to the petal rather than the centre. So I thought I would give that a go. Because really, I haven't got a clue what I am doing. I have almost entirely used Innocent Crush fabrics but also used a couple of precious Little Folks dobby voiles that have been sat in my stash waiting for something really special to come along.

The joy of discovering fabric that coordinates with my nails  

I have also encountered the term 'fussy cutting' for the first time. It sounds like the way my kids like to have their sandwiches served, but is actually about using the pattern on the fabric and deciding where to cut your shape based on this. I love doing this and it's something I have always done in smaller craft projects. Now I have a special term to describe it.

I kept the sections of the flower half from the charmed palette and half from the swept away palette. And then got cutting, old school style with scissors.

It's been a hectic few weeks around my place but I have found myself itching to get back to it and I suspect this will only grow as I begin sewing it all together. I'm only making the cot sized version as it is a good size and gives me a better chance of actually finishing the project.

So here is block 1 of 8. It's not perfect, and being a perfectionist it did annoy me a little that that it didn't all line up perfectly. But it's close enough. The next block I shall cut really carefully, especially the voile which seemed the most determined to cause me problems. I love the variation in texture it brings though, so I shall forgive it.