Greek cross, final finish for FAL Q1 !

My very patient and rather lovely husband Mark (known affectionately as Scoobs because he does a great Scooby Doo impersonation) is displaying my final finish for Q 1 of the 2017 FAL, this is my Greek Cross quilt from the FALQ1 list 

 I am in a lovely bee for siblings together and December was my month, I have this idea of doing a quilt to commemorate ever holiday I go on. I have wanted one to remember my trip to Athens a few years ago. I will never forget going up to the Acropolis on a beautiful sunny day and see it in all its splendour. 

What really struck me was the gorgeous blue sky and the creamy marble. It was a mental hop skip and jump to putting together a Greek cross block in creams and blues.

Here are mine:

The lovely ladies from my bee and some other IG chums who weren't sent me a ton of blocks to put together.

Which gave me more than enough for one, so I might have to add a second one to my Q2 list!!

Tilty twirly cannons

Pant pant I've had this done for ages but never got round to blogging about it, but I need it done as a finish a it was on my Q1 FAL list. I bought this American civil war fabric two years ago in Paducah, it's really not my colour palette at all but I grew to appreciate the ones on display at the show in Paducah so in I dived.b

I was amending slightly the original pattern as I didn't quite have enough fabric to make the whole quilt so I cut down the amount of blocks by about a third. I was all chuffed with myself as I wanted to use this pony express fabric as the whole alternate block so I needed to fussy cut it on the bias as so:

Fab eh? So then I started cutting the fabric for the centers of the star blocks which again were on point, I thought I was being ever so clever in getting the cannons and guns all fussy cut on point until I started putting the block together ..... I didn't need to cut the centers on point .... So hence the Tilty twirly cannons and guns ....

Hey ho, call it a design feature and claim it gives the piece extra movement! Any hoo I like it and it's a lovely reminder of a great trip.

Moroccan quilt

My perfect Christmas was spent in Morocco, what a fabulous holiday we had there. So I was determined to make a quilt to commemorate it.  Well it was added to the 2016 FAL list but had to be rolled over to the 2017 FAL list Q1 I adore Kaffe Fassett so really it was a no brainer to choose a quilt from his Morroccan book. I had a fat quarter bundle of beautiful metallic fabrics which reminded me of Morroccan tiles. So with the decks cleared off I set!

I also had a few fat quarters of Michael Miller arrow flight fabrics, perfect for framing the diamonds.

Oh the bias, all the bias .....

Much fudging, a few wee sweary words and we are all set! Just to quilt and bind .... Think I can get that done for the end of Q4????

Well I didn't get it done for the end of Q4 but I did get it done for the end of Q1 2017!!!!

Little bit of Liberty love

Finish number 2 from the Q1 list !! The competition for our Gartmore retreat was a mini quilt with red in it. Hmmmm I really really wanted to use up some Liberty from my visit to the Standfast barracks, I found s stunning red fabric there. I also wanted to try clamshells by hand, I have done them by machine before but wanted to try a little one by hand.  

I still had to hand quilt it, I have tendon issues in my right arm so this takes me a bit long as I have to ration my hand sewing time! But I get there.  Et voila

It didn't win at Gartmore but I love it and had a great time making it and that's the main thing isn't it!

FAL 2017 Q1 first finish!

First tick off the Q1 list I haz a finish!! Woo hoo!   

  

So what do you give as a wedding present when a paper conservator marries a rare book cataloguer? Well you think about a double wedding ring.

The arcs you do in Janet Clare wordsmith.

  

You put ardently Austen in the center of the arcs.

For the centers of the rings you use library from Paperie by Amy Sinibaldi

Tha backing is notebook, more texty fun. A little bit of Denyse Schmidt thrown into the mix and we have a table runner. They liked it!

FAL2017 Q1

So 2017! Let's go for it! No faffing about straight in with the first finish along list of the year.  I don't often put embroidery, cross stitch on but I really really love the Pretty little city designs from Satsuma Street, so let's get this Pretty Little Italy done, I have many many more to go!
This is a wedding gift , all it needs is bound, no excuse here!

 Clamshell Liberty, my hand sewing is slooooooooow, let's knock this one off eh?

I'm in a swap for these 4.5 inch economy blocks, I have a bazillion of them, need to make them into something!

 Eeeekkkkk! This should be top of list, baby quilt made with pattern from Pam and Nicky lintott. Baby due in April, plenty time ...

 

 

Right FAL2017, bring it on sunshine! *rolls up sleeves*