Retro Butterflies Quilt

Today was too beautiful a day to miss a photo opp in the garden with my newly completed Retro Butterflies quilt.  Woohoo!

This quilt was a class project with original design by She Can Quilt's Leanne and taught in Belfast by Judith.  I have been so enjoying the new skills of curved piecing to achieve these butterfly quilts, and I even did it the hard way with templates.  Not a die cutter in sight for this dinosaur!!

This quilt really started with the backing fabric which is a lightweight curtain which my gorgeous friend Di charmed from some charity shop.  Being rather taken by the vintage feel of it but the freshness and softness of the colours, I knew immediately that one day it would be the perfect backing for an aqua and grey quilt top.  So I raided my stash back then and set aside any fabrics that might work with it and over time I added a sale fq here or half metre there until the stack was big enough to stretch to a reasonable sized quilt.

When Judith advertised this class for her summer term programme, I wasn't the only one to rush to enrol.  And, I am so glad I did!  I love the calmness of the colours in this quilt, the soft dove greys and the splashes of clear water aquas.  It's definitely a summer quilt, so I used some very low loft cotton wadding from Quilter's Dream and added a few echo quilting lines inside and outside each butterfly.

This gloriously over-exposed shot shows off the quilting beautifully.  It reminds me of simple celtic knots almost when you see it from a distance or from the back.

I'm calling this quilt "Flutters of Friendship" because it will always remind me of the other friends who've had a little share in its bringing into being - Judith for her class tuition, Leanne for her original design and brilliant curves piecing video tutorial and Di for her generosity and thoughtfulness in gifting the inspirational backing fabric.  Thank you, lovely ladies!

In my attempts to ensure that this quilt did not add to the WIPs list that I have so diligently been trying to diminish since the beginning of the year, I actually managed to finish up a few weeks before the end of the class session.  But never fear!  Trusty WIP/UFO list to the rescue -

these 49 churn dash blocks have been laid out and are being packed for a piece-a-thon at tomorrow night's class!

Mixed bag!

Well, this week's stitching has been a bit of a mixed bag, mainly due to the tedium of unpicking my tragic medallion quilting.

Though it must be said that Fry's chocolate cream did help a little bit as those rows and rows of stitches had to be undone in a rescue bid.

When my eyes started crossing over unpicking white threads, I took a break and picked up my chevron crochet. The main body of this little throw is now finished - woohoo - but, I think it needs a simple border now just to tidy up the edges before I can truly call it a finish.  I'm waiting for one more ball of yarn to arrive and hopefully I can push this over the line in this FAL quarter.

I've also been piecing these grey and aqua retro butterfly blocks for my class with Just Jude Designs.  I missed class this week because hubby was speaking at an evening conference for work but I worked on my blocks anyway to keep up with the class schedule.  Missed my friends and the fun chatter though, hope hubby isn't working next week.

Eventually, all the nasty stitching was removed from the medallion top and on Friday I started my third attempt at quilting this medallion quilt.  I think that this quilt top is the elephant I will simply have to learn to eat piece by piece.

As you know, quilting is not my forte and is certainly my least favourite part of the quilt making process, but rather than balk in fear of ever getting it right, I am approaching this quilt one step at a time.  So, a little bit of star outlining and lots of quilting in the ditch has been the way to start over.

A bit more outlining of geese and stabilising of borders with ditch quilting yesterday morning and she is beginning to look a lot healthier than she was last week!

I know the top is hanging low in the picture, but you can see that the awful distortion of my second quilting attempt has been redeemed.  I need to tackle the tippecanoe border next, but I'm pleased to report that I am feeling a little less overwhelmed at the prospect than I was 10 days ago.

Little Spring Mandala, pattern by Made in K Town, measures 7" diameter

Finally, this morning I used the scrap ends of yarn from my chevron to make up this bright little sunshiney mandala.  This was really quick to crochet using this great tutorial (just note it's written in US crochet terms).  It's one of the mandala suggestions made by Lucy of Attic 24 for her Yarndale Mandala challenge, so soon it will be off to join the other pretties in this year's Yarndale displays. (If you are interested do check out Lucy's posts, but note she is looking for only ONE mandala per sender.)

Not too shabby a week all in all!