My English paper piecing quilt is finally finished. It has taken a month on the sofa of maternity leave where I worked on it everyday all day, and then 3 months of living with a newborn who will only let me have both hands free for about an hour a day.
The whole thing feels like a tremendous achievement for me as it represents so much hard work. It's very fragile though. I can already see weak parts where the stitching is loose. I should have tied more knots in the ends of each piece as I went along.
I thought I had so I don't understand why the threads are loose in a few areas. I suppose that I am just used to machining, maybe it's to be expected that there are a few loose bits. Hopefully they will hold up to everyday use.
The end result is really soft.
If you want to make one yourself here is the
pattern I created. I printed this out onto thick card (not too thick, more like card you can easily fold in half, 200? 220gms?) 6-10 times and cut the shapes out with a scalpel and ruler. I reused some bits as I went along.
I still have lots of fabric left but I didn't want to make the quilt massive. It's really just a cot sized quilt. I'd rather try a different pattern now. Dresden plate perhaps or a
Lucy boston style quilt.
I meant to post some pictures of the finished hexagon quilt then got totally overcome with baby duties. I don't know where the day goes? Anyway here they are!
It was a really time intensive project, more work than Brennan's mini durham quilt by far. I even used different colour thread to quilt the hexagons and stars. I really don't think I would have finished it under normal circumstances. I really enjoyed the process though and I feel that the finished quilt has a soft, oldy-worldy feel to it that I love. There is nothing modern in this quilt. The delicate Liberty fabric seems perfect for this project.
The only shortcut was the binding which I bought readymade as I just came across it in our local craft shop and loved the subtle colour difference between it and the backing.
I might sew Penelope's name on the back as this really is her quilt. Every swollen ankle moment I sewed it. During contractions I bounced on the ball sewing it. I even took it to hospital and let it sit in the labour room in the suitcase. And every late night feed it has sat on the sofa waiting to be finished. Now Penny is three months and normal life is just starting to filter back, it seems fitting that it be finished.
