I’ve been making a quilt for my great niece, I promised one for her christening which was in the summer. I did make it clear that it wouldn’t be made in time for the actual day, but I did promise to try and make it before she was 18!!

I’d been looking at the chandelier quilts for a while on pinterest, so this seemed a perfect opportunity to make one. Last time I shared my progress I was trying to decide on the layout, organised or random…

I shared the two options on the UK quilters facebook page and I must admit random was the most popular choice and left to my own devices that’s probably what I would have chosen. However…I also sent the photos to my niece and she chose the organised one and now it’s made up, I love it. I made three extra blocks to swop out the ones in the bottom right corner that didn’t quite flow and here’s the finished top…

I love it when they’re all smoothed out and sandwiched together.

Having had a perusal on pinterest I decided to keep the quilting simple following the diagonal lines. At first I tried stitching in the ditch down the centre of the sashing, planning to then quilt quarter of an inch in from the other edge. My quilting in the ditch is never very neat so I abandoned that idea and just stitched quarter of an inch on either side of the centre seam. This made nice squares round the little squares. I then realised I should also be quilting down the outside of the sashing too as this nicely quilted round each big square! So the original three rows of quilting turned into six rows down each sashing, but it was worth it as I think it works really well.

The backing is a lovely soft cotton from Timeless Treasures which I spotted in the Remnant Shop in Harrogate, it picks out all the colours perfectly. It looks like a batik but it’s actually just a printed cotton which actually probably makes it softer – it feels lovely.

All I’ve got to do now is bind it and embroider a label.