BLOG 151

I am posting a prompt blog this time as I will be away for a couple of nights over the weekend., this timme to Abersoch on the Lleyn peninsular.

Two things have been resolved this week. Firstly, I have taken all the pressure off myself by deciding to have the ‘String of Diamonds’ ‘quilted by cheque book’. I have done this once before, for non-competition work, taking a pair of similar quilts to Castle Court Quilters in Whittington in Shropshire. I was thrilled with the result last time, I loved the rambling all-over texture and I was impressed with the speed at which the quilts were returned. Di has agreed to quilt it in the next 2 weeks so I will have a bit of time to bind it before the Gresford exhibition. Phew!

The other thing that I needed to do was to get the rest of the borders on Ella’s quilt before putting in onto the wadding and backing fabric and this is how I went about it. I used offcuts of the bright and light fabrics cut at 4 ½” x 1 ½” and sewed them together to create another border all round. I made sure that it was always the light fabric going round the corners.

 

                                        Corner border

 

For the final border, I decided to cut the remaining light fabric to get as wide a border as I could manage.

 

                                  Remaining fabric

 I measured the perimeter of the quilt and worked out that I needed 6 strips. I had 18” to play with so reasoned that I could cut 6 strips at 3” wide.

 

                                           Measurement

 

                                            Six strips

But what I had forgotten to factor into my workings out was the extra length that was added to the top and bottom when the borders went on! I was 6” short!!!

 

                                          6” short

 All I had left now were a few light strips from the inner border. These were joined together and cut to 3” x 1 ½” before being attached to complete the final border. And do I mind? Not really! Although it doesn’t look very professional as far as the blog is concerned, it shows that I too make mistakes and don’t mind admitting it. And putting it in context, this is a quilt for a 4 (nearly) year old’s bed and I expect and accept that it will be abused and ill-used. She will bounce on it, make dens with it, and do goodness knows what else with it. This is not a competition quilt and a label or motif will cover it.

 

                                  A cobbled corner

 So the quilt got its final press, ready for putting the layers together.

 

                              Final press

 I am going to use Warm and Natural wadding and a candy strip backing fabric

 

                                           The layers

 I layer my quilts in the same way as I have described in the past, pinning the backing fabric RS down onto a carpet. And this is where Willow starts to supervise. You may remember that I have said in the past that wadding must be magnetic to cats. I don’t know where she had been sleeping or how she found out that I was pinning a quilt; wadding doesn’t exactly crackle, does it!! But she was there from the start.

 

              A quick wash before we get down to it

 

                           This is mine, all mine!
 

 

                                OK, you’re nearly winning

                                                                    

                                       The worm turns

 

                                      Quality control

 

                                     Meow of approval

 I always pin around the outside edges first, keeping the quilt top as taut as the background fabric. Then I put safety pins either side of all the vertical seams, making sure that there was enough room to sew down the seams with a walking foot so that I don’t have to remove any of the pins. And now some machine quilting awaits me.

BTW: Welcome on board Sue Horder, thanks for signing up to be a follower, one more for me to talk to!