Quilt Now BOM - quilting begins

Hold on to your hats my lovely readers!  Yes, you see before you a basted Quilt Now BOM quilt.

It has taken long enough, hasn't it?

Now, don't go getting over excited and expecting a finish any time soon or anything, but yes, quilting has begun.

Well, a little bit anyway.  This quilt has been calling out for hand quilting rather than just machine quilting, I feel.  So, after some stitching in the ditch to stabilise the quilt, I've threaded up with perle cottons and am outline quilting the bits of the design I want to pick out.

I would love to get this quilt up on a wall soon, but as with all of my projects it'll just take as long as it takes.  At least this one's on the go now and will be a good one for cosying under while stitching on darker, chillier evenings.

Handquilted Sampler Update

Guess what?

I have finished handquilting ALL of my hipBees sampler blocks.

YAY!!!!!

The last stage of the hand quilting was to stitch a single line border all the way around the quilt.  I am dying to show it to you properly, but for now you can just see how much fun the back looks.  When I get time to add a hanging sleeve and drill some holes in my dining room wall, I will be back for a proper reveal!

Disappearing Four Patch Cushion

The big question today is, why did I never try this before?

Reminds me of Opal Fruits (or Starburst for you young 'uns)

Seriously, how did I not realise that it was such a nice finish to conceal the zip in the cushion backing this way and quite straightforward to do?  What's even more terrible is that my great friend Judith has a fab tutorial showing exactly how it should be done and I have only just tried it for the first time this week!  Sometimes I am slow on the uptake, I tell you. I did line my backing but that bit was easy peasy to add to Judith's lovely clear instructions.

 So, here is the finished article.  A 24" disappearing four patch cushion.

Lightly handquilted in perle cottons.

Fabrics selected to tone in with a Scrumptious layer cake which will become a very simple quilt one of these days. I am just itching to get at it but better wait until there's a finish on my red and cream hipbees quilt - now there's motivation if ever I heard it!

So, here's what I learned on this project -

1. I really like the disappearing 4 patch (d4p) block.
2. I learned how to calculate fabric requirements the d4p block.
3. I think the d4p pattern looks much better in a larger quilt - the secondary patterns are distorted a little on the curve of the cushion which you don't get on the flat expanse of a quilt. And, of course, on a quilt you have more blocks to show off the pattern in.
4. Concealed zip backings aren't anywhere near as difficult as I thought.
5. Maybe it would have looked better if I'd finished it with binding rather than just sewing up and turning through.

All in all though, I'm happy enough with my experiment and even more thrilled that the colours work well with the Scrumptious fabrics.


PS If you have large scale print fabrics that you want to use but don't want to chop up into weeny pieces and lose the look, I think that a larger version of the disappearing four patch block would be ideal for showcasing them.

Making Magnus Proud

... and alleviating some pressure!

You know that I was feeling a little overwhelmed because I've had lots of starts and not so many finishes lately?  I worked out that a lot of that has to do with a build up of small projects and quite a number of handstitching projects (not all of which I've shown you yet).

But, I am clearing them up little by little, and Magnus's credo "I've started so I'll finish"  (see this post for explanation of reference) is beginning to be a little more true than of late.

Last weekend, I managed to add the finishing cuffs and hanging tabs to the Christmas stockings for the exhibition day sale.  All five bunting sets were also finished after stringing them with satin ribbon. They looked suitably pretty, although I forgot to get a piccy before adding them to the sale stocks we are collecting together.

Sneaky peek

I have also been working hard on some little stitcheries and am relieved to have them completed and tidied up now too.  I cannot reveal them just yet but will do when my book is published in three or four weeks time!   Gotcha!  I'm kidding about the book of course, but there is some fun and excitement for me so I'm looking forward to sharing the full pic with you before too long.

While not a finish, I have made progress on the disappearing four patch floor cushion.  The perles were calling to me from the corner of the room, so I obliged by handquilting coloured flowers in the white spaces and white flowers where the coloured corners converge (though you cannot see these in my pics).  I am hoping to work out how to put a concealed zipper in the backing and then I can cross this one off my list too!

Lest you think I've forgotten about the hipBees sampler, rest assured that I am making progress there too, with four more blocks quilted, leaving just four more to go.  I need to get piccies to share with you.

So. it seems a little bit of a reality check has motivated me to get my act together and move things on a bit.  Need to keep at it and hope for a few more finishes sooner rather than later.

HipBees hand-quilting progress

Although it has been almost a month since I wrote about starting to handquilt my red and cream hipBees sampler quilt, it isn't languishing in the corner as a forgotten UFO.  I've been trying to sneak in a wee bit more handquilting here and there.  Admittedly, it is slow going but I think the results are worth it.

Some of the blocks are very obvious about how they should be quilted in outline.

Others raise questions about whether the white outline stitching is enough.  (I did quilt in the red corner squares and centre square, but you can't really see the red thread here in this photo.)

Occasionally, I find it hard to make the right decision and I've managed to quilt myself into a bit of a pickle now and again as in the block above.  I kind of got myself a little confused where the star point outlines overlap and think there probably was a neater way of doing this one, but hey, every day's a learning day!

I think the back stitching looks kinda cool too, don't you?

8 down, 8 to go!  Come on, Sarah, keep at it!

Caught the bug

Well, the hand-quilting bug is hanging around these here parts even though my hexie quilt is finished, washed and in use.

Remember my red and cream sampler from the fabulous blocks that the hipBees made me?  I looked and looked at it trying to decide how to quilt it, and to be honest trying to ignore the little voice in my ear.  But you know, the voice was right, this quilt deserves a little more personal quilting attention, so hand-quilting it is.

Using a deep ruby DMC perle thread, I made a start with Rachel's 3D pinwheel

and Tanya's wonky log cabin.  And I am now so glad that I didn't machine quilt this one!

I love the individual quilting of the blocks, which I simply wouldn't have been patient enough to do by machine.  I know the handquilting will ultimately lengthen the process of this quilt.  In truth, I would love to get it finished very soon and up on the wall but I am trying to appreciate that as a wallhanging this quilt will be the better for the handstitched effect.





























It's also given me an opportunity to try out quarter inch quilting tape rather than just stitching the seam by eye.  My opinion of the tape:  it can be a bit fiddly and requires a little patience (not much, just a little) to apply but actually I achieved a much nicer straight stitch line as a result and I will continue to use it on each block for this quilt where the red stitches against the kona snow are very obvious if they're badly aligned.

So, two down only 14 more to handquilt!  Sometimes, I wonder if my ideas are my own worst enemy...