BLOG 200

 Another milestone in Blogland, my 200^th posting: ‘Happy blogging to me …. Happy blogging to me…... Thank you to all of you who look in and keep in touch; it’s nice to know that you are interested in my ramblings.

I decided this week to get on with another of the panels for my calendar quilt. I went through the same involved procedure that I have described previously but I ended up with the flower in the wrong corner! The whole point of the background panels is that the colours run into one another but somehow I managed to rotate the block and didn’t notice until all the work was done. I can’t undo it as the process would leave marks on the fabric and I can’t make another block because I haven’t any more of the same fabrics!!! I am so cross with myself that I have shelved the project until after the Gresford show when I can think more clearly about a solution. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

                                         Rotated block

 

So, in a spirit of cancel and continue, it has been onward with the exhibits for the Gresford show and the items for the Sale table. I still have a few workshop samples so I have used some to make bags. There’s now a bag with a flower wheel design with a repeated pattern front and back, and a positive/negative framed daisy.

                                   Flower wheel bag

                     Framed daisy negative

                         Framed daisy positive

I make the bags by joining two ready quilted panels together with a binding strip and then shape the corner by sewing across the base.

                                Shaping the corner

All I needed to do was to make the handles. The simplest way was to create strips of fabric and batting as follows: The fabric strips were cut at length of handles x 4” and the batting cut at length x 1 ½”.

                                          Strips

Press a ½” seam along the top edge of the strip and place the batting just below it. Iron the lower edge over the batting and fold down the turned edge to cover it. This seam should run along the centre of the strip. (It saves making a tube and turning it through.)

                         Batting and turned edge

                          Pressed lower edge

                                 Central seam

I sewed from the seamed side, down the middle of the strip with a decorative stitch to hold the fabrics in place through the batting.

 

                                 Sewn strips

 

The ends were attached under the seam at the top of the bag, 3” either side of the centre.

 

                           Attached handles

 

I completed the free motion quilting in the centre of a stained glass panel.

                    Stained glass panel

 I joined squares of Batiks together to create a backing fabric for my ‘Trip round the Batiks’. I am awaiting the batting so that I can quilt it.

 

                            Trip Round the Batiks

 The pile of finished work is growing!

                        Finished projects