Wednesday 12 February 2014

Want to win a quilt, final reminder


Win a quilt reminder
This is a final reminder that if you would like me to make you a quilt, you will need to leave a comment on this blog. I originally stated that I would do the draw when I have reached 10,000 views, and I now have only 29 views to go before the draw, so get those comments in :-)  I will post the name of the winner in next week.  Fabric that I will use in the winning quilt is here:

Winning quilt will be made from these 10 fabrics

Kutch Diamonds
When we were in India, we saw diamonds everywhere, 60 degree diamonds to be more specific.  Jinny had asked us before the trip to cut at least 500 of these little diamonds for a hand stitching project,  and great was our surprise when everywhere we went, they were popping up.  They were on walls, on floors, on doors, on fabric, on jewellery, on purses and especially on trucks.


My first few diamonds hand sewn together






I came back desperately wanting to make a quilt (not hand stitched) that would remind me of these diamonds, so I started Kutch Diamonds.  It took two and a half days just to cut out all the pieces and get them organised in a way that would make sewing them together easier and I grew increasingly more desperate and impatient to start sewing.  Imagine then my disappointment when I realised that I did not have quite enough of the dark brown fabric to do the binding.  And it needed that dark brown, no other colour would do!

Not enough of this brown fabric

I decided to just start sewing anyway and spent a lot of time in the evenings online trying to locate some more of said fabric. Unfortunately the only information I had was that it was produced by Moda and is in the Basic Blenders range. This specific one must have been produced a few years back because I could not find it anywhere.  Of course I could not remember where I had bought it, so I turned to a Facebook group I belong to, they came up with some great ideas but still no fabric.
At this point a friend saw the quilt and convinced me it was worth entering into a show, so I looked up the show and the Rules for entering a quilt.

Kutch diamonds

This quilt is a biggie at 100" square but the rules stated maximum size of quilt to be no more than 96".  What to do?  I would clearly need to loose 4" of the side but was not sure it would still look right with the outer border taken off, but it did seem like fate that I now would not need the extra brown fabric.
After 5 days solid stitching, it was a relieve to know I did not have to unpick the pieced border as well (that I was so proud of as it fitted together just perfectly).

Initial ideas for quilting





















The quilt was loaded onto HQ yesterday and I started the SID with my new Linetamer ruler (I love this, only wish I bought it before), all the SID now done, which meant I could start having fun with the rest of the quilting.   This is a peek into what I have done today



Applique quilt
I got some really rather nifty tools called Apliquick tools recently and have been itching to use them.  I have now decided what applique project I would like to do next and has copied all the pattern pieces onto applique paper and cutting them out.  O boy, is that going to take time. Thirteen blocks will make up the quilt, each one with a HUGE applique motif, each motif consisting of between 20 and 50 intricate pieces. Something to do when listening to and not watching television. My efforts so far:

Pieces for 1 block cut out so far 

Update on Dutch Treat
I know it is not quite the end of February yet, but I do know that I will be spending my evenings cutting out applique shapes and not stitching, so for February my total is 8, which means 94 to go

Reverse applique blocks for February


I will be in Sunny South Africa in March (yay!) as my mum has a very special birthday and we have planned a lovely SURPRISE party for her, so I will escape all the floods and rain that we have here in southern England for a little while, so looking forward to some sunny weather or at least an end to all this WET.