Friday 24 November 2017

Keep on Trucking!



Lovely Appliqué





This is the latest piece off my frame. Such a lot of appliqué work by Jenny, a fairly new patchworker, and she made a lovely job of it. Her 3 year-old grandson is going to love his Christmas present! Jenny was off to look for a sewing machine upgrade when I saw her this morning - she's got the bug!


Before I started that one, I had chance to baste this top for Susan. This is her version of my Star Crossed Chains  'mystery' design and she plans to hand quilt it. Susan chose to make it in the subtlest of neutrals, yet there is still sufficient contrast to show the pattern. I am so pleased to see the variety of fabrics everyone has used and how different they all look.

Last Saturday, at Studio Quilters, I set about increasing my stash of 4 1/2" neutral string/strip squares.
 I have been piecing these on and off over the last year or so, from all my odd sized scraps (and I mean scraps!) of mixed neutral fabrics. These are pieced diagonally onto foundation squares of phone book paper using the flip and sew method and then rotary cut to the required size. They seem to be transformed into something beautiful when all the ragged ends are cut off. And look how little I actually throw away  - if those triangles had been even a little bigger I would have made half square triangle 1 1/2" squares with them too! 


I knew I needed a large number of these for Bonnie Hunter's Jamestown Landing quilt, which has long been on my personal To Do List. So on Saturday I went into mass production and prepared larger strip sets, purpose cut from my neutral stash, and cross cut them into squares. I checked the pattern when I got home and was surprised to find I only needed 168 and had actually got 162. 
Guess what I did that night!! 
Now I only need to make 840 blue/neutral 2 1/2 " Half Square Triangles.


On Sunday, we manned our well stocked stall at the Christmas Fair at Allum Hall and gave a healthy contribution to the NSPCC. 




And I parted with my Tree of Life Quilt!

Next up is the third of Sandy's 'memory quilts' that she is making for her visitors from the States, so it needs to be ready by Christmas. The fussy cut clothes on this one are lovely, as Sandy has salvaged lots of precious little details. I set aside the time to do this for her and it is coming along really well. Pictures in my next blog...........

Happy Quilting Everyone!

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