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

It's beginning to feel...

I've been working hard on finishing some UFOs before the turn of the year and radio iodine treatment. The first one I wanted to get done was the Christmas quilt I saw in a magazine last year. It was designed to be assmebled in wiggly rows, then turned through 60° and cut into a large rectangle. Hhmmm! I really don't have floor space big enough to be able to do that, so I unpicked some of the shorter rows, and re stitched them so I've got a rectangle. It's big enough to cover our king size bed, but we'll be using it as a snuggle quilt for the lounge.



I was going to go for a totally scrappy look, but in the end decided to stick to a red and white colour scheme, with one stripe of green.



I bought some muticoloured thread from our new Hobbycraft store which I'm planning to quilt it with. I'm not sure whether to go for straight lines (contrasts with the wiggles of the quilt, but boring to sew) or to use a pre-programmed stitch on the machine and do wiggly lines down the centre of each wide stripe. Decisions decisions.

I finished darning the ends of Ben's quilt in this afternoon as well, so it's all wrapped and ready for the tree. I've not done a label yet, but I'll practice on some scrap fabric before doing the real one.

Finally, my BQL list Secret Santa present arrived. I've been a good girl and put it on top of my wardrobe until the big day.

still off work

I've been off since last Tuesday following the operation, slowly getting better and more energetic, anyway on Friday I woke up with a really itchy leg, right where I'd been bitten. It was swollen, hot and so itchy it was unbelieveable. Eventually we ended up at the out of hours doctor's facility, and I got myself a new course of anti-biotics, double strength, some anti-histamine tabs and some hydrocortisone cream. Lucky me then also got one of the commonest side effects of anti-biotics! So now I'm off sick for the rest of the week, with instructions to finish the course.

Even better, he warned me that the discolouration may take up to 2 months to clear. Just as well it's winter and I'm in trousers.

So, while I've been off, I've been working on the Christmas gifts for my quilt group. Currently up to 24 in all, so about another dozen or so to go. Needlecases, pinwheels, pin cushions, could do with a couple of new ideas for some new gifts but I'm happy with how they're turning out:



I'm also carrying on trying new ideas for that mariner's compass star. I've re-drawn the borders to emphasise the spikey-ness of the compasses, and today got as far as printing off the foundation for the central star. I'm not making it up as the full quilt this time, but it'll make a great cushion while I practice the technique. I thought I'd go traditional and stick with red, white and blue. All I need to do is cut the foundations and sew the thing together!



This was also my first attempt at trying one of EQ6's new features, being able to choose my own sections for foundation piecing. (Actually I'm not sure if this is new, but it's the first time I've used it!!) Tomorrow I'll pull fabric from the stash to try piecing the star.

I also finished my Christmas table mat yesterday after only being able to sew in half hour bursts for most of the week. All appliqued, quilted and bound, and ready for the Christmas meeting: