Catching up

A week off meant a week of catching up on stuff, or so I thought. I was going to get all up to date with BOMs, farmers wife etc. Instead I just became a bit manic about trying new stuff, well nearly new stuff.
I blogged about making the shadow box quilt, I really loved making this not least because it came together so quickly, I still need to decide on a final border though, here is the finished top so far.

I then started on what I thought was going to be a very quick quilt to make -hot chocolate. I have made this one before

it was always one of my favourite quilts. The fabrics had been chosen for well over a year and lurking around in a drawer. There was one fabric missing so I replaced with an oriental style one.

Its second from left in the fabric pile above, I love the way it totally changes the whole quilt top.

But then .... Disaster. I had chosen a sweet little orange 30s print for the final border, the addition of the oriental style fabric meant this was really not suitable any more, it needed something with more punch. I found a great green and red fabric, just the right combo, I cut The four WOFs I needed and then was going to trim them to size, I wasn't thinking and trimmed the wrong edge, the folded edge ... So I now had 8 pieces each exactly half the measurement I needed, there was nothing I could do. So I cut up those strips for binding. Now I just need to find something else for the final border - sigh. More haste less speed.
Linking up as ever to WIP Wednesday

Bloggers BOM

I was rootling about in my patchwork room and found my bloggers BOM 2012 blocks

I had totally forgotten about these wee things, very scrappy. I had bought some green fabric as sashing for them, must look it out and see what I can do with it. This is a year of getting stuff finished ... Famous last words.

Done and dusted

The jelly roll quilt is done! Yea! Happy dance, many many happy dances, it will be a long time till I wrestle with something this small again ... But I do love it.

Close up of back with funky chicken pattern

Big not small

After wrestling with all the teensy tiny pieces in the Jelly roll quilt I wanted to do something BIG, not necessarily a big quilt, but big blocks. Huge blocks even so I dug out this quilt which has been patiently waiting in my to do pile for well over a year.
The pattern is shadow box from Mountain creek quilts I loved this ever since I saw it in Seattle quilt company in Aberdeen.
I had picked out 7 FQs for the twin sized quilt well over a year ago, also bought some dark purple solid for the shadow part.

I was always a bit worried about the purple but decided to stick with it. I then needed to decide on sashing, I really didnt want to buy anything new for this one, I wanted to get going NOW. Patience is not a virtue I hold.
So the following were short listed:
Orange batik?

White with black pattern?

Or just plain old white on white?

I felt there was really enough colour in there so stuck with good old white on white.
I loved the fact there was almost no wastage from the FQs, although there was a fair bit of solid left over.

Cutting was quick and easy and boy did it come together quickly:

I have to put inner borders on then choose an outer border, that I think will be the tricky part.

Linking up to WIP wednesday

Calico quilt

I have been trying to pull all my photographs of quilts together in Flickr, and in true librarian fashion label and tag them. It's lovely because it brings back such fond memories, memories of making the quilts, memories of giving them as presents.
Most of my quilts I give away, our house has many more quilts than it will ev need. Some though have been kept and this is one of them.

I call it the calico quilt for the obvious reason that it was made primarily with calico. It was a block of the month kit, my friend Irene spotted it at the Festival of Quilts, probably about 2009. She and I both signed up for it. I love quilting along with friends, we egg each other on and keep up a healthy dose of competition to see who can get things finished first.

I loved most of the blocks in this quilt although it did confirm my dislike of crazy patchwork. I just can't do crazy patchwork, too unstructured for me. I particularly liked the textured and tucked blocks, very simple but very effective.

I don't think I would make a quilt from calico again though, I can see areas on it now where the seams are pulling apart and I don't think it's all down to my wonky stitching! But we keep the quilt because it is one of my husbands favourite ones, he really can't cope with the amount of pattern and colour my quilts usually have but this one is right up his street :-)