BLOG 311

BLOG 311

I was on a roll this week as Rog was away on the family farm in the Forest of Dean, helping with the TB testing of the cattle (passed with flying colours!). So I had lots of time and space to myself. After cleaning out all cupboards and wardrobes and drawers around the house to justify my existence and appease my conscience, I decided to quilt a quilt top that I had made a few months ago. This is intended as a small quilt for the Linus project (for you Jackie!). The design is called disappearing 4-patch.

               Disappearing 4-patch

I followed my usual system of pinning the batting and the backing to the carpet with open safety pins before pinning the quilt top in place.

                  3 layers

And before I knew it, the quilt was under the sewing machine with a variegated thread on top and a dark thread to match the backing in the bobbin. I started on one corner and worked my way across the quilt using a random and flowing cloud pattern.

                  Start

                 Cloud pattern

                 Finish

I added a signature and then trimmed the batting to ¼” beyond the quilt edge. I trimmed the backing fabric to 1” from the edge of the quilt edge.

                Trimming

I rarely finish a quilt this way but for speed I thought I’d give it a try. I folded the backing fabric over the batting, tucking in a small seam allowance at the same time. I pinned it ready to sew on the machine and sewed it from the top side of the quilt as you see it below.

                 Pinned seam

              Sewn seam

                 Finished quilt

And because I enjoyed making that Linus quilt, I finished a second one as well (also for you Jackie), doing a loop-de-loop quilting pattern on the machine this time. I bound it in the traditional way with a 1 ¼” strip and mitred corners.

                Loop-de-loop

               Shaded triangles

And here’s my charity shop bargain of the week. I needed a small cabinet to hold my thread boxes and sewing machine paraphernalia. I saw this at £6 and couldn’t leave it behind! It is on castors so it slides underneath my sewing table when I don’t need it. Brilliant!!

               Bargain

                  Fit for purpose

                  Stowed away

An exciting week lays ahead for our group. We have submitted out quilt for judging at the Festival of Quilts and we will be down there as a group for 2 days to enjoy the show and see how the quilt has been judged. I will be full of the show next blog; you can depend on that!