Lap Quilt #3

Matthew's Quilt Front

Lap quilt number 3 now finished and all off to their respective owners in time for Christmas.  As I came to the end we set them all out and finally chose owners, this one (which is my favourite with my obsession with order) went to my husband's paternal grandfather, a much loved man in his 90s with Parkinsonians which makes it difficult and slow for him to walk.  He has macular degeneration so is unable to see well, and is mostly deaf, but is still very much 'in there' and loves his food.

Matthew's Quilt Reverse

The blues in this quilt were a fat quarter and a slightly larger piece of oriental fabrics, one from Fabric Freedom and the other from Makower. The browns were various stash fabrics, some Three Cats / Shwe Shwe german prints and an african mud cloth, but also one fabric that has been used for everything from tree trunks to horse's tails.  I made sure no two browns were opposite each other in partnership with the cream (some of this was the very first fabric I bought) and paired them with the darker brown, another stash fabric.

I hand quilted with Superior's King Tut #994 Karnak, which amazed me by having the exact same blues and green in order, thanks to Barnyarns for the accuracy of the pictures of the threads on their site.  I quilted the stars loosely then quilted the nine patch squares in circles using a template cut out of fabric, after being struck by Linzi Upton's quilted circles on her wonderful Quilted Yurt when she came to our Region 16 Quilters' Guild Regional day in September.  As I said, I do like geometrics.

Lap Quilt #2

Jean's Quilt Front

Lap Quilt number 2 finished all quilted and bound, and I'm actually nearly there on the third one.

This one was another lesson in fabrics that aren't nice thin weight cotton, the lovely yellow William Morris fabric is a slightly heavier furnishing weight fabric, but still a good cotton if a bit sore to sew through when quilting at the seams. I don't think the green was pure cotton but it's all used up now! 

The choice of colours is my inner unconventional child getting her way, I always remember the quote 'red and green should never be seen', well, I think it's wrong, think about Christmas for starters.  The colours of this quilt are warm and rich to me, medieval colours of a rich bluey green and bluey red combined with the Morris fabric itself inspired by medieval fabrics and designs.

Jean's Quilt Reverse

With the quilting on this one I wanted the thread to show a bit more, so I quilted in the ditch around the stars but wanted to do something a bit different with the nine patches, particularly where there were plain squares, hence the quilting pattern of curved squares (can you say that!) and stars.  As always the flannel kept moving, I don't think I could have done it on a machine without much shoutyness.

My maternal grandmother sits in her room with this on her lap and watches the birds outside the window in her room in Harrogate.  

Mystery Quilt finished

It took me a while, but I finally sewed together the binding strip and got my Mystery Quilt finished off.  Oddly enough, I was really careful following the instructions for making the binding but still sewed half the bindings seams the wrong way!  Oh well, it was a lovely time spent doing the slip stitching, I do love the feeling of having a quilt on my lap while I work on it.  But the saga of the curmudgeonly cat continues, we'd had it on the bed a couple of weeks when we came up and it was all rumpled.  The cat had chewed it again, so I'll have to find some wall space.  It's a shame, I loved having my own hand work on my bed.  Will just have to get on with the sampler quilt.