The first of the quilts that I couldn't share with you before Christmas, (because it was a present for my sister), is the Field Study Quilt. It is entirely inspired by
this quilt from
this house. I loved the use of the triangles (obviously - being obsessed with them at the moment) and using colour to create separate blocks.
I used
Thangles again, this time,
4" Thangles, because I find it impossible to make accurate half square triangles without them. And
Field Study, with a few solids and prints from other collections to compliment it.
November's spare time was mostly taken up with sewing this quilt, I became totally absorbed in it, like a good book. Watching a lot of re-runs of ER, sewing a lot of
1/4 inch seams and fiddling with the order of the order of the blocks to get it just right. I found my iPhone incredibly useful when it came to photographing the order of the blocks so that I could tidy them away from the kids/pets/hoover in-between sewing.
Sewing 4 squares together to make the blocks was a bit fiddly, but once this was done, sewing the blocks and then the rows together was really quick. Adding row after row was very satisfying, as it went from pile of fabric to finished quilt top.
For the quilting, I stitched in the ditch as usual, due to lack of imagination and desire to do anything more complicated. It ended up being a stepped zig-zag across the quilt, following the squares. The backing was
this extra wide dottie quilt back because I am far too lazy to piece a quilt back.
I canvassed opinion on Instagram about which shade of grey to use for the binding and decided on
this one - I find it
really hard to choose binding. I always have the idea that I chose something rather more adventurous but end up going plain - I guess this quilt is quite adventurous enough already. As per my last few quilts, I managed to make the binding a good half a metre too short. Maybe it's time to buy a calculator? But this time I did add the wording when the binding was already partly sewn on to avoid putting it in the wrong direction, at least I have learnt one lesson.
I finished my quilt when my mum came to stay and we sat side by side on the sofa. Me: hand stitching the binding, her: doing applique on my niece's quilt.
It has ended up being a decent sized quilt, somewhere between queen and king sized I think, plenty to wrap yourself up in.
It was finished just before the end of November leaving me feeling unusually organised when it came to Christmas presents.
How did your Christmas crafting go? please share any links from your blogs or Flickr of finished projects.
