Monday, May 25, 2009

Bank Holiday



This bank holiday I thought I'd save some money by staying indoors finishing things off. Now I am on the making strips part of the quilt which is a lot of fun. I am still amazed that I can look at a collection of fabrics thinking they go together, only to sew them together and realise they don't half as much as I thought they did. This quilt is all about bold bright clashing colours so it's even more difficult, but it's good fun just taking risks and living with the results. I tend to always put the colours I feel safe with together so I look at this as breaking out of the box a bit.



The whole 60° thing is a complete mystery to me so as a result I am relying quite heavily on the template rather than measuring with my ruler. I have been reliably informed by my mother that templates are OUT and rulers are IN, but I just don't have her expertise. There's something quite reassuring and foolproof with a template so I thought I'd just run with it and see what happens. The only good thing about 60° cutting is the stretch you get with the fabric which allows you do a lot of 'tugging' when you're sewing the blocks together to get them to line up. I'm sure it's all going to go drastically wrong at some point but until then I am happily cutting up strips and making blocks.



Here's how it is shaping up. I am not quite following the pattern instructions as I am using a lot of small scraps which have been in my stash for years. Two bits of material were childhood clothes! My mum once made a quilt out of her beautiful 60's dresses which she had lovingly saved. She probably could have sold them for a lot of money as they were beautiful, but she loved them so much, she wanted something forever to remind her of those great days. I thought that was a really nice idea so I have incorporated strips from clothes than just remind me of being young. I had saved them for such a long time, it seemed fitting to finally be able to use them for something. It means there are a lot of random seams in the middle of strips but I quite like the effect. It's a bit like Kim's washed and worn jelly rolls where you'll suddenly get a strip with a pocket on it!

3 comments:

ray said...

WOW!! Great pattern, can't wait to see it come together. Save some scraps for the cats we have yet to make!

Anonymous said...

What you've done so far looks amazing! Can't wait to see it completed!

Anonymous said...

Thanks guys. It'll probably take quite a long time as it's a queen sized quilt. I'm not used to doing something so big, I have no patience!