2018 Wk 51

Some time ago I bought two packs of fabric from Aldi.  Pretty, spring fresh colours I wanted to share them.  I thought a Linus quilt would be nice and I thought it would be a good project for Richmond and Kew.  I cut all the fabric (12 FQs) and the same amount of white into rough 9" squares and last session gave everyone a white and a pretty square of fabric and asked them to make at least 1 x 8.5" block, with the idea that they will all be put together to make the quilt next year.

For one of mine I started with a small flowery strip: I added suitable other colours and went with a Bargello sort of design.

Another flowery design got sub cut and I added some suitable strips

And as that ended up too wide and have a strip trimmed off, I added the flowery and some orange to some white

And ended up with three fun, very different blocks . . . except - "£$%^&*() - drat and fiddlesticks, there is a top strip of purple missing from the Bargello - sigh, wop-de-do, I get to do some of my favourite hobby - unsewing!!!!

 However, more fun was sewing with Sharon at home and at Crafty Church -

We embroidered this cool hare and initials onto some towels for her husband

And this stunning quilt got finished, with the same hare on the back

And then my phone ran out of batteries, so no evidence, but at least two ladies were learning EPP and making Christmas stars like this one

I'm off now to unpick my bargello :-(

To unsew? Or not to unsew?

At the end of last month the Northern Lights Project was unpicked and sent to the Thinking Step in disgrace.  It was to sit there and think about what it had done and not to comeback until it was sorry.

Well it did come back and apologise, and so I pressed and stitched and pressed and stitched, and I was happier about it this time, its still not as curved as it should be, but with quilting I think it will be OK

This is the original photo, the finished wallhanging will be much wider, but at the moment I'm just working on that curve

 

I was wondering whether to FMQ around the swoop, to enhance that, and that maybe would blur the harsh angles, or should I FMQ vertically to enhance that effect instead?

I thought I'd zap a photo to Jackie to see what she thought, the flash was on auto, and THIS is what I see

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I'd been working on this in artificial light - you know, one of those light bulb that takes ages to glow bright, and it had looked fine, but under the flash see that I'd forgotten to continue with the very dark grey in the middle of the two sections of lights

Any suggestions appreciated

Posted with Blogsy

Unsewing :-(

I decided the northern lights design wasn't doing it for me, so this is the result of today's time in the sewing room

The expanse of sky is now strips of sky

Pah!  Good night 

Blinking Binding

I'm not sure how many quilts I've made over the years, but there are quite a few, and the vast majority have been finished with continuous non-bias binding.  That must be a fair amount of binding.   I understand how to do it, I use it regularly, I teach other people how to do it . . .

So why did I stitch such a huge seam allowance this time?  Now the binding won't fold to the back of the quilt - not until I've spent hours and hours unsewing, and then stitched it again nearer the edge.

"Fiddlesticks", and other words!