Liberty quilt

A quick turn around on this one as I am away for the weekend and like to clear the decks. Liz used all but a few scraps from a Liberty bundle.

The pantograph chosen is full of the joys of spring with rabbits playing in a garden.

Riley Blake fabric challenge for the Modern Quilt Guild

I applied for the challenge fabric through the MQG and then forgot about it. Then a 1kg parcel from Riley Blake was shipped to me. Hmm, intriguing. It arrived, and didn't weigh 1 kg at all and contained the challenge fabric. A generous 3/4 yard which remained pristine  in its packet. Fortunately there were some shipping delays for others so the deadline was extended until 31 May. Yes I am posting a full three days before entries have to be submitted and I only started it just over a week ago.

My thoughts all along were Welsh strippy quilts like this one here. Of course I didn't do any research and just relied upon my memory. One of our local guilds was requested to make quilts for the children's ward of our local hospital so I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone.

I pieced and quilted the black and white quilt above, using a pantograph for the strips and ruler work for the printed strips. I have learnt a lot from the process and need a lot more practise. I also FMQ's the borders and went straight from the pantograph into the border like I was taught by Angela Walters. no ends to sew in. It was at this stage that I heard that the sizes were completely wrong for the hospital. So I don't know to whom I will gift the quilt.

Then I dyed the quilt using Procion dyes. Not a bad result but a bit patch and a bit orange. Friday morning I Facebook messaged a local shop owner who confirmed that she had a Dylon packet of Tulip red, a quick dash into town and the quilt was soon in my washing machine. Yesterday and today I've sewn on the binding and submitted my details to The Modern Quilt Guild. Relief

What to work on next? Perhaps a small project that I scheduled to complete this quarter, whilst also quilting a customer quilt.

Folk art basket

I thought I had just about finished this folk art basket by Button Angel yesterday. However when I went to turn it inside out and finish it, I realised there were six leaves not stitched down. Hmm. Do last night I unpicked it and have remedied my mistakes this morning.

I mostly followed the pattern but made a few adjustments as I went:

I made the basket round rather than oval

Some circles I replaced with buttons

Stems were made out of ribbon

And I used fabric for the appliqué rather than wool felt.

Blocks for Helen

These are some of the blocks that I have sewn for Helen (Indiana Dreams) for our Bumbling Honeys Bee. We are hoping to meet up in July as Lizzie and I are in London or at the Festival of Quilts in August (or  both). Some projects are with their last person, so are on target for a July finish. Some are more tricky than others. I have found that deciding what to make almost takes as long as making my contribution.

The full reveal won't be until we hand over our blocks and the envelope shown above isn't my final block as I wasn't happy with the contrast between the Kona white background and the script fabric. I just have one block more to make and I have to pick up some fabric from Jane to complete it as my stash is deficient in some areas.

I hate extra seams in blocks and regularly adapt patterns for Blocks of the Month to eliminate the extra joins. You can see from the foundation pattern above that the letter E would have to be made up of two pieces which would have to be sewn together to make the block.

Well I decided to try and do some mitred corners to enable the block to be sewn as one piece. I can report I was successful. I did it by just sewing to the intersection of the pieces and reverse stitch to secure and then I did a mitred corner as you would do on a border. I've torn away the paper to show you how it looks. I was surprised at the sense of accomplishment I felt.

I will show you the final blocks after they've been revealed in July or even August.

My secret garden block of the month

You know that I love a good block of the month. This block of the month is hosted by Pat Sloan at the website freequiltpatterns.info This is the May block which I have just completed. Instead of using a red fabric around the middle text fabric I decided to pick out the pink in the centre block and used a favourite Lu summers fabric.

Here are all of the blocks laid out together along with my pack of fabrics that I have used so far. When I run out of a fabric, I plan to just add a different fabric into the mix.