BLOG 255

BLOG 255

I will be away at Wimbledon this weekend; it is my very first visit and Roger and I will be seated in the upper reaches of the centre court on Saturday to watch Andy Murray play, amongst others. I am very excited about the whole experience and, as we will be late back on Sunday night, I thought I’d better get my blog underway. This week I have been getting on with the quilt-as-you-go multi-coloured scrap quilt (I must find a better name for it!), first mentioned in Blog 246. I have loads of scrap fabrics left over from numerous other projects and it has proved a cathartic experience making something for nothing.

                                                        Scraps

 Part 1: Most of the preparation is done on the ironing board and this is the tedious part. All these scraps have to be sorted and ironed.

                                                 Ironing

 Part 2: Then it’s over to the cutting board to cut 1 ½” strips. The off-cuts will be discarded; I certainly have no intention of working with these itty bitty bits! I did a lot of my cutting at the Gresford craft group this week whilst chatting to my chums on the same table. It makes a tedious job go pleasantly and quickly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                             Strips

 These strips are piled by my machine ready for off, and you can see that there is a huge variety of colourful fabrics. I have discarded any very light ones.

                                Work station

 Part 3: I over-lap 2 fabrics with RS together and it is my intention to sew on the marked diagonal. I have long since grown out of pining and marking; this is just for the picture! Here’s the sewing sequence.

                                                      Stage 1

                                                Stage 2

                                                     Stage 3

                                                 String piecing

I drop the long strands of joined fabric onto the floor, ready to be taken to the ironing board where all the seams will be ironed in the same direction. They will then be ready then for the next round of cutting.

                                              Long strands

 The waste bin where all the corners have been discarded is full of colour; it is delightful! But there is no way I am going to use them, I am probably going to put some in a bag for the grandchildren to use with glue. That will keep them quiet for a while!!

                                       Waste bin