Evie's quilt winging its way to Kelso

Well smug at having finished Evie's quilt and got it off before she's no longer a little baby!  I'm really pleased with the finished result, the pattern works well and is really colourful.  I'm now confident with my paper piecing and ready to launch myself onto a bigger slow growing project, beginning to put together pieces from my scrap bag and Caitlin's outgrown but much loved clothes.

Once I'd done the piecing, using Superior's fine strong Masterpiece thread, I got some cute baby dinosaur printed fleece from Letham Craft Shop near Forfar, and basted the two together using 505 spray.  I'm not sure I'll ever go back to traditional basting, it's so much easier!  In contrast to my usual method I bound the quilt before quilting as the quilting wasn't going to be directional or move the top much.  I usually do continuous binding but went for butted / knife edge binding this time and it was mostly fine, I had to unpick one edge where it hadn't caught the fleece and patchwork properly.

I found a nice old fashioned font online and reduced it to a single line.  I drew Es and Rs, Evie's initials, onto the hexagons using a green Frixion marker and hand quilted them.  Frixion markers disappear under heat and vanished beautifully after ironing, I also washed the quilt to make sure it wasn't going to come back.  To quilt I used a favourite quilting thread, Superior's King Tut in Mummies.  This is a thread I've used for several baby quilts and has a lovely repeat of pastel yellow, blue and pink.  I did originally try my hand at free machine quilting but wasn't happy with the result so unpicked and went for hand quilting, which gave a really lovely line.

So finally back to the knitting.  Between this and having lost over a stone after taking control of my eating and exercise, and becoming stronger and more flexible during yoga, it's been a good week.  Now all we need is for the weather to cooperate, here in Scotland seedlings are still having to be in the school bottle greenhouse, we might run out of space soon!

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 Quilts

Margaret's Quilt Front

It was me who was the bright spark that wanted to create lap quilts for my maternal grandmother and Scott's paternal grandparents, after all, when you've reached their age what do they really need?  My grandmother is in a nursing home and I'm sure is thoroughly sick of chocolates and bath salts, me and Caitlin are going to visit her in November so this was an opportunity to make something that would be useful and hopefully look good.  Scott's grandmother always admires my sewing, so it was a no brainer for her too.  They will have names when I've decided which one is going to whom, I think this one is Margaret's colours but will have to consult with the big man.

I decided to use only fabric and piecing thread from my stash, which included some heavier weight cottons and some polycotton, the latter giving me enough trouble that I will sort through and put them out!  The former was a pretty William Morris fabric that I was happy to have the difficulty working with.  I adapted a Lynne Edwards design from her Stash Buster Quilts which I shamelessly stole off my mother, very much learning as I went how to fit the full size quilt design down to a lap quilt.  Her easy method for creating the nine patches is great fun but needed adapting when I didn't have enough fabric to do more than three or even one block.  I machine pieced the quilt with hinderance from my cats who were determined to sit on the blocks

Lap Quilt #1: Reverse

I bought the wadding (Hobbes 80/20 Heirloom, white) and backing, choosing to use a plain flannel which is lovely and warm but a pain in the butt to quilt, even with careful basting it moves!   I was hand quilting though which made it easier to manipulate as I went along.  I quilted in the ditch all round the star panels on this one and did swirls for the 9-patches.  Most of the fabrics in this one are from my and my mum's stash, so I have no idea what they are, but two are V&A fabrics from the Quilts 1700-2010 exhibition (Hearts (Red) and Seaweed).  The blues I can identify are a Fossil Fern from Benartex (possibly #2 Patina) and Leafy Glade #36.  The quilting thread for all three was Superior King Tut, in this case Jewel of the Nile (#913) which beautifully matched the red and blues.

So, one down, two to go.  Having said that, I'm a good way through quilting the third and the second is just being bound, so I may be there soon.  All I have to do then is choose which one to give to whom.

An update in January, it did go to Scott's grandmother and she phoned a few days later to say she loved it.  The matriarch and heart of a loving extended family, she and Matthew have them on their laps in the evening to protect them from drafts.  What more could I want.