Quilt #2

Back in November I ordered two fat quarter packs of Tanya Whelan's Delilah range from Cotton Patch, with 6 FQ's in a pack that gave me three metres of fabric.  Then when I was in Abakhan I picked up some bargain bin pink swirly fabric that matched with the Delilah range.

I've seen so many fantastic patchwork quilt top patterns, but I wanted to keep this one quick and simple as it was the first time I was doing a quilt of this size (and only the second time I made a quilt!) so I stuck with a really easy block work pattern of rows of 6' by 9' blocks (idea from this snuggly quilt).  I tried to keep the organisation of the blocks a random as possible without creating big areas of one fabric pattern.

Using the big blocks was great as it took so little time to do all the cutting (unlike all those half square triangles for the Bleakley baby quilt!) and in no time at all the quilt top was all sewn together.  There was a lull in proceedings then whilst I finished the baby quilt and Mum's Christmas table-mats, and then last month I  started pinning it all together to start the quilting.

I'm still practising quilting in straight lines, so decided just to sew in one direction across the quilt - I'm really rubbish at quilting in the ditch (the seam where the block rows are sewn together) so I though this would be an ideal time to practise! Towards the end of the quilting I did start to get better at keeping the quilting in the ditch.... sort of.  I really liked the effect of the lines sewn 1/4 inch apart on the cushion that matches the quilt but it would take forever to do that on a quilt this size and I thought it would make the quilt far to stiff. So I decided to do a line 1 inch either side of the seam, and halfway across the block (so 3 inch from the seam).  I also did a line 1/4 inch either side of this halfway seam.  The pattern turned out well - not too much stitching (time taken good!) but enough for interest.

There was enough of the pink swirly fabric to make the binding, and I'd picked up a couple of purple themed fabrics from Abakhan to do the quilt back.

I wasn't that impressed with my hand embroidery so I thought I'd try fabric pen approach for my label, that seems to be what everyone suggests on the Internet.  I ironed the fabric to freezer paper, and then used a permanent fabric pen - I'm quite pleased with the results.