Saturday, October 18, 2014

Postage Stamp Complete!

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Gold star. Finally. After starting my postage stamp quilt project in October 2011… then putting to down. Picking it up again in Jan 2012… then putting it down, picking it up once again in July 2014… yeah yeah yeah. Finally, today, I have finished making the quit top. I have sewn my last 3/4” block. Phew. I almost ran out of the calico mum had given me. It really was touch and go and some of the Liberty fabric is all but gone. Small slivers remaining.

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I really can’t believe I have finished it. I have spent some concentrated time on it over the past few weeks as I really would like to move on. I want to use all the precious leftovers in my scrappy Posie improv quilt. I feel that I have finally ferreted away enough nice bits of fabric in order to start this. I'm really pleased with the borders. I nearly didn't have enough strips of squares to do this. I had to cobble together a few emergency ones at the end. Of course I worked out the maths wrong so that the squares don't join up in the corners, but I just decided I didn't care.

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All my planning was basically in vain. I predicted 4.5" blocks; they were 5 1/8". I thought the final size would be 36 x 52: it is in fact it's 47 x 66". I am not sure how this happened but it's all fine.

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In the end I sewed each block into groups of 4, then groups of four into four (16 blocks) then sewed two 16 blocks together three times. So it all made for an even quilt. 8 x 12 blocks. All the blocks line up pretty neatly which is amazing. There was a lot of tugging fabric going on to achieve this.

I'm really pleased with the finished top. It feels very tasteful. I spent a long time choosing the fabrics so that I had a slightly purple colour bent. It really appeals to my 'little house on the praire' traditional quilt feel. Time for something really modern after this.

Now I just need to go to my mum's to beg some of her wadding from her enormous roll in the cupboard and piece my backing together from the discounted Liberty fabric I got at Birmingham. Oh and then hand quilt all the plain blocks like this 

Next projects:
Penelope's advent calendar - I really need to get cracking!
Sawtooth star quilt - so nearly complete
Hex purse - just missing a bit!
Fat quarter repro quilt - lost the pattern!

Why does my list never seem to go down?




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