Monday, July 20, 2015

Neutral half squares done

I love a quick project. This one has come together so swiftly. I was worried that I wouldn't like it. I just couldn't quite envision the end product nor be sure that the colours would really go together. But when I held it up today I realised that I love it.

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I am really into the improv log cabin blocks. I love the strips of colour; the peaches and purples; the dark spots of colour and the mix of neutrals. And I just made up the quilting. I love it.


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I love how the colours combine whichever way you fold it. I worried that the prints would look out of place but I love how the Denyse Schmitt fabric fits in. It's my favourite print of hers. The Kaffe Fasset shot cotton is mixed with chambray and Oakshott fabric. All very similar. The Kaffe Fasset has a beautiful softness to it though and a great set of colours so I think it wins over the other fabrics for me.

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Here is a view of the whole quilt. I did minimal quilting as I didn't want to make it stiff. I just went diagonally down the triangles and randomly round the log cabins. I used all of mum's scrap offcuts of wadding for this – 5 or 6 strips glued together – so it needed a bit more quilting that I really wanted.


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You can't really see the quilting too much. I think you can often lose the patchwork if the quilting is too dense.


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I love the binding. I have been hoarding this soft fabric from RayStitch thinking I might do some dressmaking with it, but I caved in. I decided to create smaller 2" binding rather than my usual 2.5" and to be honest I think I could have made it 1 7/8" but I hate it when you have to constantly tug and stretch it and it makes the corners harder.


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It just fitted in so perfectly with the colour scheme. It's a brownly green, perfect against the solid greens in the quilt. I always like a pin stripe border so this is great.


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Because it's also quite neutral it fits in really nicely against the tan stripes and neutrals. Exactly what I wanted. A few bits of tasteful colour and the rest looking a bit like the saturation had been taken out of it. I used to many precious fabrics. The swirly pattern on the right was one of the first fabrics I bought with my mum and Maggie Wise. I think I made them choose it all for me as I had no idea. I really love it.


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Just one more shot of it. Oh how I love it. I really shouldn't have used it as I was planning to use it for my Tova Dress one day. Let's hope RayStitch have some more! To be honest, I just don't feel so excited about the dressmaking side of things. Probably because I have never really made that much.


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With the quilting I tried to work my way round the log cabin in a spiral, but I am easily confused. You can see here where I had to cross over myself. I thought it was a mistake but now I wish I had done it more. All I knew was that the last quilt I quilted had 10 lose ends to bury per block and I am still getting rid of them! So this one had almost none.


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Here are some details. I love all the colour combinations.

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And the stripes and pattern ration worked out perfectly. I kept trying to separate the patterns but in the end I just had to do it randomly as I didn't have enough space and time to lay it out. A lot of this quilt was done during pootime. Pootime is the new naptime. You are banished for ages whilst her highness consults the winds and concentrates on her poo. SO I immediately start sewing madly until she comes to find me. It's not ideal, but I'll take what I can get. So small projects I can dip in and out of are best at this sort of stage.


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I didn't have quite enough backing fabric I used up the green fabric I bought in Liberty thinking I was going to use it as the skip blocks in my postage stamp quilt but chickened out in the end. I am really glad I did as it was far more perfect for this quilt. It was expensive fabric but I think it is well worth it as all the solids are some kind of special interweave or percale now. It's going to wash so well and be beautifully soft.

So two projects were realised here. My version of Brooke's lovely quilt and this stripey backing by Jaime. Now back to finishing two more WIPs and making y bag for Birmingham!

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