On Monday, the last day of August, I finally got completely up to date with Pat Sloan’s BOM, Vacation Time! I finished May, June and July last week, which just left August…

Unfortunately the instructions for August were the sort that makes my heart sink, the same reason I dislike stitching borders on anything, whether it’s cross-stitch or quilting!

First job was to cut out 200 squares…200! Actually the first problem I had was choosing the fabric! I’m trying not to buy any fabric for this quilt, I’ve made it just from cottons in my stash. In the instructions Pat uses a light colour for the background with a nice zingy red for the pattern. My problem was that the light colours I’d used in the quilt, I just didn’t have enough to cut 150 squares, I looked at other lights in my stash but they were just too light. I had a nosy on facebook to see what other were using (Pat has a facebook page full of inspiring quilts!) and I notice a couple had used patterns for the background and different colours for the contrast.

I found some material in my stash which colourwise goes well, my only hesitation is that it doesn’t feel like quilting cotton, it’s got quite a firm weave so hopefully it will be ok, fingers crossed as I’ve used it!

I then cut 50 squares out of different colours to make the contrast. Once everything was cut out it was quite straight forward to stitch, I just had to concentrate to make sure the patterns went in right direction! Trimming the half square triangles and the individual blocks to the perfect size was a bit of a bind, just because there is so many of them. However one thing I have learnt from doing this BOM is how much accuracy counts in quilting, it’s basic maths really but if seams are 0.5mm too wide, or blocks slightly too big, then over the length of a border it can add up to 1-2cm, which then gets pretty obvious! Time will tell how accurate mine have been!!

I was pleased to get this month over and done with, September’s block has just come out and that looks easier!