A Finished Quilt!

It may be August but I am super excited to be able to show you my first quilt finish for 2017. 

This quilt was made using my leftover Cotton and Steel fabrics – I guess I could call this one Cotton and Steel Quilt #4!

(You can see my previous Cotton & Steel quilts by clicking on the following links: Cotton & Steel Quilt #1; Cotton & Steel Quilt #2; Cotton & Steel Quilt #3)

Cotton and Steel Quilt August 2015

Plus Plus Quilt October 2016

Cotton & Steel Quilt #3 November 2016

 

For this latest quilt, I made super sized economy blocks – a pattern in Love Patchwork and Quilting magazine Issue 46. For the first time I tried QAYG and was pretty happy with the end result. I didn’t struggle with the actual quilting process quite as much and think this technique may be my method of choice for future projects.

After joining the blocks together, I used a much loved Cotton & Steel fabric – Study Hall in black and white by Alexia Marcelle Abegg – from my stash for the backing. I joined the quilted front panel to the backing by stitching along the seams and around the grey background squares, both vertically and horizontally.

I’m very happy to finally have a quilt finish for the year and am now feeling quietly optimistic that my quilting –  and blogging – will continue, albeit less frequently than previous years 🙂

Linking up again (after a long absence!) to Let’s Bee Social @ Sew Fresh Quilts and NTT @ My Quilt Infatuation

 

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Scrap Busting

My children have just returned to school after a two week vacation.

I don’t know how I ever manged to find time to sew during previous school holidays, but this time, I barely managed to snatch an odd half hour here and there!

However, I did sort through my scraps.  Yes, that’s right, after a whole year of quilting, my scrap bucket was finally overflowing (now I feel like a real quilter!)

I knew I wanted to sort my scraps by colour, so I used the pattern from the book Sunday Morning Quilts to make a few fabric baskets.

I did however make one special basket for my leftover Amy Butler Quilt scraps!

My grey basket is already pretty full (mmm…a favourite colour?) and I made it using the quilt as you go (QAYG) method.

The blue one was straight line quilted after piecing in a chevron pattern.

And I practised my shaky beginner free motion quilting skills on this orange basket.

I still have quite a few baskets left to make and figure that it’s not only a great way to use up some of my scraps, but also an opportunity to practise different fmq patterns!

I feel like I have a bit of direction and focus this week after my last post. I received kind and encouraging emails from some of you plus I have picked up quite a lot of tips and advice from other quilters in the New Bloggers Blog Hop (my introduction post can be found here)

Thank you – I appreciate it SO much!!

On that note, I’ll leave you with another animal photo bomb – first, it was a chicken, and now a horse. Gotta love livin’ in the country!

Deb 😉

Linking up to Let’s Bee Social @ Sew Fresh Quilts