Happy Mothers' Day

It's Mother's day here in the UK (You know I'm never 100% sure where the apostrophe goes...Is it a day for all Mothers in which case after the S, or is my personal Day, in which case, before. I've written it both ways here, just to annoy any pedant reading). Anyway, I choose to spend my Day by quilting and sewing. I finished piecing the Guide Fundraiser top last night, and am really pleased with how it turned out. I'm especially pleased with the coloured log cabin border. Less pleased that it was only as I laid the blocks out ready to assemble that I realised I can't count and needed to whip up another 4! Still all done now.

I've pieced the backing, a blue batik, and put the wadding aside ready for sandwiching this afternoon. I decided to wash the backing, which I don't generally do these days, as it's a deep blue batik, and just "felt" that it had excess dye still in it. With there being so many neutral strips on the front, and it being a fundraiser quilt, the last thing I wanted is its new owner washing it and having blobs of blue run through. Naturally I didn't have enough of the mauve basket fabric to bind it, and the substitute mauve I found was too short as well. I'll be using strips from the backing fabric instead.

The other quilt I'm working on today is the pink and white one which I was commissioned to make for a former work colleague's step daughter.

It's currently sandwiched and waiting for me to close the pins and put the straight line quilting on it. Once that's done, I'll be using apale pink thread to free motion swirls and loops with hearts all over it.

The stash busting is looking good this week, as I decided not to count what I use until I'm at the actual quiltng stage of a piece. So two quilts ready for the machine, 16 yards of fabric used up!! Again, I calculated the yardage of the tops by weighing them. Smidge over 4 yards for the pink and white one, smidge under for the yellow and blue one. 4 yards each for backing.