Monday 8 December 2008

Hannah's quilt finished!



Not the greatest pic in the world, camera was playing up, and I couldn't load it onto the computer last night, wrapped the quilt and then realised this morning the flash hadn't worked. Anyway excuses over. More about the quilt.

I bought the plain pink and purple fabric in Birmingham with Hannah in mind, and the bundle of batiks I picked up somewhere (Truro?) I went for the same pattern that I used for Carly's 18th birthday quilt last year, and used a purple fabric I bought without taking the top woth me, so I was really lucky to get such a great match for it.

It's FMQ'ed in a random squiggle, but to make it different, where the pink squares are, I've drawn a freehand flower. I aimed for 5 petals, but some of them have six, and I know there's one with only four! Also at random places throughout the quilt, I've drawn a freehand leaf. I was trying to keep the individual parts of an ash leaf in mind while I was doing them, but some are a bit fatter than others.

The borders are short leftover bits of strips, and a narrow purple stripe, and I used more leftover strips for the binding.

My other finish this week has been this tessellated top:



I'd bought the fabrics from eBay, they're a Moda collection called Portugal. I knew I wanted to use them together in a scrap quilt, to show off the colours to the best I could. I was flicking through a really old magazine that I'd got as a freebie with one of the current ones and found a tessellated quilt. I've looked at them and loved the way all the blocks interlock and the edges between block and pattern are blurred. This one had a simple enough looking block and the cutting instructions looked straighforward! Ha! Famous last words. They suggested using the same fabric for the background blocks to make piecing easier, but I didn't have enough of any single fabric to do this, so first of all I worked out how many blocks I could get out of a FQ (3) and then how many I needed (pattern said 42) then started slicing fabric.

I quickly realised the pattern hadn't been written very well, and I needed a lot more background fabric than they suggested. OK, this is what EQ's for...a quick re-draw and colour!! 3 days later I had my quilt drawn and printed. I went for greens around the border and a repeating colour design where the variety of patterns would give a scrappier look. I'm thrilled with how it's turned out.





Now I just need to work out how best to quilt it. There's no specific plans for this one, but I might think about asking Serendipity how to go about selling through them

Friday 5 December 2008

December bag challenge complete



I really enjoyed making this one. The fabric was a piece of Designer's Guild glazed cotton that Pat gave me a couple of years ago. I liked it but wasn't sure where I was going to use it. When this bag pattern came up, I knew I could use the Baboushka fabric. I started it, then checked with H that she liked it...she loved it, so looks like she'll be claiming it for her own! Another great pattern from the BQL bag challenge, and once I've got it posted on the thread there, I can get a bonus pattern for having finished it before December 21st.

I had my 4 week post TT check up yesterday. They found two small primary tumours in my thyroid, and another secondary in one of the lymph nodes the surgeon removed. This doesn't affect the course of treatment at all, and I'm all set for the RAI in January as planned. Back to work on Thursday. I mentioned to the surgeon that I was planning on running a full marathon next year, which he supports, and when I said it was at St Austell, Eden Project, he may well do the same one himself. It sure helps to have a surgeon who's a runner!! He might see me on the start line, but by the time I finish, he'll have finished, showered, changed and driven back to Plymouth!