Sunday, October 16, 2011

Hexagons

Hexagons

I have finished the grey hexagons at one end. Just got the other end to do now. I'm not sure how much I like it. I didn't make the blend between the purple, red and yellow subtle enough and so you can sort of see a line where the colours change. I also think I should have looked at the original picture more as the colour is in the centre and the grey all around, but you live and learn. I just want to finish it now so I can move onto the next project!

Hexagons

You can see the different suit material and tweeds. Then I'll be able to think about how I am going to hand quilt it.

Postage Stamp Progress

Postage Stamp

Well it's slow going. I have started to think I might make this quilt much, much, smaller as it will take me forever otherwise. I have managed to sew my first block together though and I am very pleased. I think I am going to spend the rest of the day making blocks up. They seems to be coming out 1/4 bigger. Hmmm... shows how good my maths is. Anyway back to it...

Monday, October 10, 2011

Postage Stamp Quilt

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For a while now I have been amassing the odd bit of Liberty's fabric. It's slowly grown on me. I didn't quite know what to do with it until I saw this postage stamp quilt.

Heirloom Postage Stamp quilt

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So I have embarked on one. I thought it would make a nice change from the giant hexagon quilt. I used up all my spray starch trying to firm up the delicate fabric and went through my stash and scrap bag. It was The Knit & Stitch show this weekend so I bought a pack of Liberty fabric from Sunflower Fabrics which is just perfect.

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There's no real colour scheme as I wanted it to be quite varied. I have tried to keep to the greens, pinks and purple in the fabric at the start though so it's all in that vein. I have tried to use small prints as the squares are only 3/4". I couldn't decide between 1/2" and 1" squares so I settled on the inbetween amount. I am a bit worried they will look gross together but by laying the strips together I am beginning to get an idea of how it might look and I think I will like it.

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In an effort to be accurate, I have been sewing strips together then trimming the fabric after it is sewn if that makes sense. I am trying to be as perfect as possible. I find that ironing them flat has a tendency to warp and bend the line of the sewing so I am having to be very gentle and just press the fabric so no moving the iron and applying lots of pressure. I am not sure how successful I am being.

I'm not quite sure how big I will make it. I might let the fabric decide as I only have 16ths of the Liberty fabric. I just know that I have plenty more to make...

I drew up a pattern to see how many blocks i would need for a single bed size quilt.

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Each block is 4 1/2" fnished. I'd need 83 to do this size quilt which roughly means about 7 sets of 6 strips. I am not sure I will still have enough enthusiasm or material to get that far, but we'll see...