Owl and Hare Hollow HQAL

Posted on April 23, 2023 by craftycreeky

Well I have just started my new project, I think this is going to take a while! I’m doing the Owl and Hare Hollow BOM by Natalie Bird of the Birdhouse. It’s being published in the Homespun magazine which is a bi-monthly Australian magazine with quilting, crochet, embroidery etc, a general crafty magazine. I’m getting it through the UK quilting shop called Coast and Country. The only frustrating thing so far is that it’s obviously coming over to the UK via snail mail, taking a couple of months, so the facebook page is full of the second magazine stitching already and I’ve only just started the first one! At least it gives me an idea of what’s coming!

It’s a lovely design, there’s 48 blocks altogether with a mix of embroidery, applique, pieced and English paper piecing. The patterns are being published over twelve months, so six magazines. There’s lots of little EPP hexagons, like dozens! Each embroidered design is surrounded by a circle of twenty 1/2″ hexagons, so I’m going to get a lot of practice! I quite wisely ordered a set of ready cut paper templates for the EPP, although it wasn’t cheap I think they’ll be worth their weight in gold.

I’ve pulled a selection of fat quarters and scraps mainly from my stash together with two or three purchases. I find with this sort of quilt I tend to have one fabric which is a starting point and then the rest are planned round it. The starting one this time was the flowery one on a teal background on the far right, so I’ve pinks and greens, I need to look out for a couple of peachy ones, I’ve added blue into the mix together with a couple of browns, thinking of things like owls and hares. I’ve tried to go for more mid tones than me usual selection of wishy washy! I’m also hoping that the little ditsy prints will be good for fussy cutting little hexagons.

The first magazine gives instructions for two embroidered designs and four paper pieced blocks with ‘coffin’ blocks, I’ve started on an embroidered block first. I’ve traced the design using a frixion pen, so I can’t iron it for photos until it’s finished or my tracings will disappear. I’ve used a leftover piece of this lovely oak leaf design for the background, I’ve got enough for three blocks left. This is a favourite of mine, one of only a handful of fabrics where if I saw it again I would buy some more.

As you can see I’ve started but not got very far yet. I’m hoping to get a fair bit of sewing done over the next few weeks so watch this space!

Hand Quilt Along Links

This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another.  If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.

Kathy, Margaret, Deb, Nanette, Sharon, Karrin, Daisy, and Connie

I’ll also be linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday, please follow the links to see what everyone has been quilting.

Posted in Owl and Hare Hollow BOM, Quilt-a-long | Tagged , | 10 Comments

Stitching my Garden SAL

Posted on April 16, 2023 by craftycreeky

It’s Happy Dance time! I’ve finally finished the embroidery of the summerhouse garden and I’m well chuffed with it. It’s taken me about six months but apart from the fact that there is a lot of stitching (and thinking time!) I do have a few other projects on at any one time to distract me.

Three weeks ago I was still stitching the pond area…

…I was stitching a pretty geranium which has spread and trailed itself nicely under the roses. I used a variegated DMC thread which is pink and green, using the green bits for lazy daisy leaves and the pink bits for the flowers. Trailing it into the pond just helped break up the pond edges a bit.

The round bush on the right is an elderly rhododendron, it looked fairly mature when we moved here nearly 25 years ago! I used lazy daisy stitch for the upright flowers and the droopy leaves. I stitched a couple of hellebores, one with white french knot flowers which is the slightly prickly one, and one with pinky purple straight stitched petals next to it.

There’s a little round shrub at the front which I just stitched with French knots, the tall frothy plant next to the summerhouse is called a thalictrum I think, it nicely takes up quite a bit of space in my stitched garden! There’s a beautiful camelia in the corner so that has lazy daisy leaves and chunky French knot flowers. The brighter blue flowers at the front are meant to be pulmoniaria

I felt the pond looked a little bare so I added Hubert, my chicken-wire heron which I made quite a few years ago.

Sometimes when I get near to the end of a piece like this and I start to look at it as a whole, I realise there’s some bare patches, they don’t necessarily need filling, just something. On the other side the ground under the white rose looked a little empty so I just used a light variegated pinky brown thread and made a few seed stitches. I wanted to show the path in some way so I just used a variegated greeny-grey thread and some intermittent straight stitches , a solid line would have been to harsh. I thought I’d finished but every time I looked at it my eye was drawn to the paving under the summerhouse. It’s actually just large square flagstones but with the distortion of the angles and perspective in this design that wasn’t going to work so I just did a few random straight stitches that filled the space…artistic license!

I think I’ve finished, though the corner behind the summerhouse is now drawing my eye, so I might add a little to that!

I’m well chuffed with these garden pages, they’re about 5.5″ by 7″, I’m planning to give them about 1/2″ or 1″ border when I make the pages into a book. This is the second ‘big’ page I’ve done, here’s the two together…

I’ve just one more of these ‘big’ garden pages to do, the Amber and Amethyst garden, so lots of purples and oranges. I’m hoping it won’t take quite so long, for a start the gravelled area is much bigger so the borders are smaller.

Stitching my garden has been a long project in the making, so I’m starting to get itchy feet to start putting it together. I started in January 22, I enrolled on a zoom course with Nicki Franklyn from the Stitchery, it was called ‘Stitch-a-garden’. I loved the course, Nicki is a great teacher, very inspiring and easy to listen too. I decided I had enough pictures so I would put them into a book…18 months later I’m still stitching my garden!

This stitch-a-long is organised by Avis from Stitching by the Sea, please follow the links to see what everyone else has been stitching.

Avis, Claire, Gun, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, AJ, Cathie, Linda, Helen, Connie, Cindy, MaryMargaret

Posted in embroidery, Stitch-a-long, Stitching my Garden, Textile Books | Tagged , , , | 14 Comments

Sewing Room Declutter 2023

Posted on April 13, 2023 by craftycreeky

I’m still working through my Sewing Room Declutter Challenge! This is meant to be a 21 day challenge in January but having started at the beginning of February I’m still working on it!! If anyone fancies doing a declutter this is on YouTube, it’s by Karen Brown of Just Get it Done Quilts

Day 12 was electronics, a fairly quick one for me as I don’t have much extra electronic things in my sewing room, two sewing machines, an overlocker and my computer mainly. I have a CD player for when I fancy a little music too. I’ve just bought a second-hand little Janome sewing machine for workshops, so my old machine has now gone. I’ve put all the leads into one drawer and that was about me done.

Day 13 was quite a big one for me, notions, such an innocuous word but it covers a multitude of sins, buttons, zips, interfacings, trimmings, linings…and I’ve got one drawer at least for each of those, it has taken a while!

I seem to have amassed rather a large collection of buttons. I haven’t actually bought that many but several people have given me a button box found when clearing a relatives house. I’ve tried various methods of storage over the years, loose in a button box, tied together in colour, safety pin sets, but I have finally found a system that works for me. A couple of years ago I started changing my bead storage over to little plastic pots made by a company I think called Siesta. They come in a choice of size and come in their own plastic box, so there might be 30 small pots, or 12 bigger pots, different heights too. I love them for beads as I can organise them easily according to colour and take a single pot to a sewing project. It crossed my mind that this would work for buttons too. I now have six trays of button pots! It works really well as I can easily see what I’ve got, they fir nicely into a drawer too. I have a tray of novelty or buttons for embroideries, some bigger pots of buttons sorted by colour, a tray of bigger buttons etc I had a good sort out of buttons I really couldn’t see me using and they’ve gone in a box for the Cone Exchange in Harrogate.

I have two drawers of interfacings, one white and one black, so that one didn’t take long, though I also have a box with rolls of the stiffer interfacing I use in craft projects etc. Similarly linings are just in two drawers, plain and fancy!

Zips have been tidied into a smaller drawer, trimmings are still a bit spread out but I have culled them a bit. I have a little drawer of the trims I use on embroideries, another of bindings, another of bigger trims such as pompoms. Elastics have been sorted with old lengths which had gone off going in the bin. Ribbons have been tidied and very old lenghs or bits I’ve been given which I can’t see me ever using either going in the bin or the Cone Exchange pile.

Lace has two drawers, I’ve been realistic on stuff I’ve had for 20 years and that’s gone on the ever growing Cone Exchange pile.

I’ve separated stretch from non-stretch lace and made a little pile in a drawer of lace that’s there to be cut up for textile projects. It’s been quite nice getting reacquainted with some of my stock, I do have some very pretty lace!

I’ve got several drawer units which over the years have been labelled with a silver marker pen, usually bearing no resemblance to what’s in there now. I’m planning on painting the wooden drawers again but I’m still working out what goes where. I’m thinking of waiting until the end before I finally decide and label the drawers again.

Day 14 was recovery day…I needed one! One week of challenges to go!

Posted in Home, sewing room | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Spring Dress

Posted on April 12, 2023 by craftycreeky

I’ve been on a diet since Christmas, having tried several times over the years on my own I’m doing it with Slimmers World this time and it has made a big difference. I didn’t want to lose a huge amount but I worked out I was putting on a stone a decade and decided to put a stop to it. I’m aiming for a reasonable 10 stone, just comfortably within the healthy guide lines for my height. I’ve lost nearly 1.5 stones so I’m now feeling the difference. One of my colleagues from work goes to the same one and it’s helped us both to have that close support.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to make myself a new dress, I wanted to use a soft needlecord from my stash in a lovely mid blue. I think I bought it from Fabrics for All in Armley which has sadly closed now. I measured myself again and I was pleased to see a size 14 should fit me nicely now (this is pattern sizes not clothes shop sizes!)

I chose Simplicity 9260, a semi-fitted princess line dress with three-quarter sleeves. The photo on the pattern envelope shows a nicely fitted silhouette. I wasn’t so sure about the three-quarter length sleeves but I decided to go with it for the first make.

To reduce bulk and add a little interest I used a batik for the collar band, the undercollar and the pocket bags. It’s like a blue/ green/ purple batik which works pretty well and I had enough left for buttons too.

Well having spent what seemed like days making it and having tried it on before I put the sleeves in, I tried it on and it looked huge! Half of me wanted to laugh the other half wanted to cry! I tried a belt on with it but it still felt too big. I decided that rather than trying to alter in on my own and potentially ruin it, I’d wait till Helen came home for Easter.

We had a lovely few days with her. Before she went back I tried it on, she said put a belt on with it and showed me how she makes a fold at the side with a belt when she has her Army tunic on, it did make it feel much better and I could still access my pockets.

I’m happy with it now, I’m thinking next time of maybe making a straight size 12, I’ll have another look at the finished size measurements. I love the long full skirt, just right for cooler spring days.

Posted in Dressmaking, Sewing | Tagged , , | 16 Comments

Summer Dress

Posted on April 11, 2023 by craftycreeky

My eldest granddaughter is 12 going on 16, she’s at that stage when she thinks she is so grown up. At Christmas she asked me to make her a top like one she had seen on Shein. In typical shein style this was little more than a handkerchief with a few straps on!!! Grandma found a top pattern that was still strappy but somewhat more covered…

She loved it so I made the dress version for Easter! It’s a pattern by Little Lizard King called Edessa. It has a fairly fitted front but the back has two arcs of fabric going up to the lower neck line where they are tied with straps from the shoulder. The skirt can either be short or floor length so obviously Pip would want as short as Grandma would make it!

I made it out of a lilac cotton from the Remnant shop in Harrogate, it’s a much prettier shade than it looks in the photo! I lined it with a soft cotton lawn that was supposedly made for Liberty which came from the Pound Shop in Dewsbury, I’m not convinced about the Liberty bit but it’s nice cotton lawn! I just had enough left to line the top.

She’s a slim young lady so I made a size 8 lengthened to a size 10. It went together nicely. I’ve made a couple of patterns from Little Lizard King, they are well drawn and the instructions pretty easy to follow. It also helped that having made it before I knew how the back worked. The only instruction I didn’t follow was to stitch the gathered skirt onto an already elasticated waistband at the back, it just sounded too much like hard work trying to ensure gathers are even and actually stitching it on whilst having to stretch the elastic out. I stitched the skirt on first, trying to even out the gathers so the elasticated bit of the back wouldn’t have lots more fabric , It seemed much easier.

I felt that maybe at 12, Pip was maybe a little too old for a Made by Grandma label, so I put a label inside with a little message on. A friend printed these a couple of years ago and it seemed a suitable one.

She loved it, I’m just waiting for mum to send me a photo 🙂

I do like being a Grandma!

Posted in Dressmaking, Sewing for Grandchildren | Tagged , , , | 17 Comments

Monday’s Meander Round the Garden

Posted on April 10, 2023 by craftycreeky

The weather this weekend has been typical of April, we had a couple of lovely sunny days over the weekend, today was dry and warmish first thing, then we had sudden hailstorm for ten minutes, and now the sun is shining!! British weather at it’s best!! Luckily I managed to time my gardening well…

I’ve spent several hours in the garden this weekend, weeding and working over the soil in between the plants. My friend who comes to help me in the garden introduced me to a wonderful little hand-tool, a hand cultivator, it’s like a mini rake with three prongs so you can work the soil between the plants. It’s been a game-changer for me, it makes the garden look tended! I’ve mainly been tidying up the patio area, I’ve moved a couple of plants, checked my planters to see what has survived the winter. I’ve a couple of plants and shrubs in the garden too which don’t look too sparkling, I’ll give them a couple more weeks to see if they’re going to show any signs of life.

I love this time of year when everything starts to appear and shoots up so quickly. The lime green climber at the side of the arbour is an early flowering clematis, it’s just about to flower, it has pretty little blue bell flowers. This one is pruned after flowering. The big shrub to the right of the photo is a white broom, it’s just about to flower too. I planted it a few years ago in completely the wrong place as it’s just going to get too big there. Once it’s flowering I’m planning to prune it and then move it to the side of the house where we have quite a dry and sunny area, I’m hoping it will be happy there.

By the side of the patio we have a few pasque flowers, pulsatilla vulgaris to give them their full name. As you can see these have gorgeous magenta flowers and they’ve flowered in perfect time for Easter this year, living up to their name. I love the seed heads of these too, they’re lovely silvery fluffy things.

This is the Amber and Amethyst garden, it’s filling up nicely. The pulmonaria are just starting to flower with their little heads of blue and purple flowers. The bronze sprouts trying to escape from the frame is a peony, I think I need to move the frame across a bit. The taller leafy one is blue camassia, the flower heads are just starting to appear so hopefully this one should flower in a couple of weeks or so. The shorter bushy bulbs are either hyacinth or bluebell, I can’t remember which – pretty blue flowers!

The violets have started flowering too, I love these, they self seed all over the place but I try not to pull them up if I can help it.

The trees on the back lane are starting to green up too, the two smaller green ones on the left are hawthorn, always one of the first to break into leaf. We’ve cut down some of the sycamores over the last few weeks which were getting too big so we’re hoping the garden will benefit from the extra light. We try to keep the sycamores down so the smaller native trees such as hawthorn, hazel and silver birch can flourish. The tall tree in the middle is an ash, it’s a beautiful tree so I’m desperately hoping it doesn’t succumb to the ash die-back, or even worse, the council come and take out all the ash trees regardless on the back lane as it’s already been seen further down.

The magnolia is past it’s best but is still brightening up the garden with it’s papery white blooms. The birds are getting quite territorial about our feeders I think as we’re now down to one pair of each, finches especially. We had a bit of excitement a couple of weeks ago when a strange bird visited the feeders, creamy white, a finch, having posted a photo on the Yorkshire birders page I discovered she’s a leucystic bullfinch. Leucism is a genetic disorder resulting in a partial loss of pigmentation, it’s not albinism as then they have red eyes too. It’s not a great photo as it’s through the conservatory window and I didn’t dare move! Her partner is the handsome chap on the right, they mate for life apparently. She’s not easy to see as she unfortunately blends in well with the magnolia behind! She looks like a snow bunting. I’ve named her snowy! She came regularly for a few days so I’m hoping once they stop being so territorial that she’ll be back.

I’ve been planting up some seed trays this morning so we’ll see if I have any success! Giant Chinese lanterns, purple poppies and giant sunflowers!

Posted in Garden | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

A Twirly Skirt

Posted on April 9, 2023 by craftycreeky

I’ve started a tradition with my grandchildren which I may come to regret, I make them a dress (or rompers) at Easter instead of giving them an Easter egg, it’s what I did with my own children when they were little. The girls love me making them dresses so I’m delighted to make them. This time I only left myself a week to make them…and then decided to paint the conservatory too! It has just crossed my mind however that whilst we currently just have three grandchildren from James and Bex, we have four children between us…that could end up as an awful lot of sewing!!!

Anyway, outfit number two was a twirly skirt for Harriet who is seven. Her mum fell for this pattern before Christmas but the fabric she wanted me to use wouldn’t have worked (and was very expensive!)as it was a border print. This is a circular skirt from Shakalaka patterns (same pattern company as Hugo’s rompers). It’s got a net underskirt to help it puff out and some straps which tie very prettily at the back.

I found a pretty Rose and Hubble print in pinks and purples and a matching pink pattern for the straps and the underskirt. The netting is pink too – she’s at the pink age! I bought it all at the Remnant House in Harrogate. What amazed me with this skirt is that a skirt for a small seven year old takes 4 metres of fabric!!!

It’s a full circle skirt, so it’s cut out of one piece of fabric, then there’s a skirt facing to make a neat hem, that basically means the bottom two inches of the skirt are cut out a second time, whilst that is done in four pieces it still takes a lot of fabric to keep the curve…and then there’s the underskirt and the straps…there wasn’t much left from the four metres!

The pattern was well written with photos at every stage. The only instructions I got confused on was the attachment of the waistband as usually the waistband contains all the raw edges of the top of the skirt, whereas with this one I think they’re meant to be between the skirt and the underskirt. I presume this is to keep bulk out of the elasticated waistband.

The skirt went together beautifully…it just took a while. The hem of the skirt is about 3.6m, I think I stitched round it five times, with attaching the facing, understitching, hemming…I also inserted some horsehair braid to help the hem to hold it’s self nicely over the netting.

We went round on Wednesday evening and she tried it on immediately over her PJ’s, it’s a little big round the waist so when they get back from holiday I’ll take the elastic in a bit. The straps are detachable too so if she just wants to wear the skirt she can. She loved twirling round the living room in it.

Happy Easter everyone 🙂

Posted in Dressmaking, Sewing for Grandchildren | Tagged , , | 14 Comments

Stitching my Garden

Posted on April 8, 2023 by craftycreeky

I’ve finished another page for my garden book, this one is made from two of the little embroideries I did, one is of a standard rose we have called Roald Dahl and the other is a length of roses to show the climbing rose called Teasing Georgia. I bought the Roald Dahl one in memory of my mum as she was a primary school teacher and one of her favourite books to read to the children was Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach. This is the book that influenced the colour of the rose when David Austins decided to name one of their roses after him.

This page ended up a little tight on space as neither were really big enough to have a page to themselves but there wasn’t much room for filler stitching. In the end I just trimmed them fairly close and stitched them onto the background fabric with running stitch and blanket stitch.

The wording was written by hand using a frixion pen but as it’s a coarse linen (from an old furnishing fabric sample book) I could follow the lines which made it easy to get a neat effect. My main problem with this bit was trying not to make it fray whilst I stitched it on.

I’m particularly pleased with my bee, I had a fat quarter of honeycomb fabric so I cut a small square and rather than just stitching round I suddenly had the idea to extend the honeycomb pattern onto the background. I then drew a bee using a frixion pen and stitched it. I’ve just realised he’s legless, so I might add a few legs!!

I think I’ve only one or two of these pages to stitch from the little embroideries. I’ve still got a map of the garden to create and one more big one to do, the amber and amethyst garden. I’m getting there!

Posted in embroidery, Garden, Stitching my Garden, Textile Books | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

Dolly the Diva

Posted on April 7, 2023 by craftycreeky

I’ve been a busy little bee over the last couple of weeks, lots of sewing and some embroidery too, I’ve been sewing to a dead line too, never my favourite pastime as I made three outfits for my grandchildren for Easter…and I only found out last weekend that they were going away for Easter on Thursday, so my potential sewing time was somewhat curtailed!

I’ve several finishes to share so expect a few posts over the next week!

First up is a little romper for Hugo, he’s now nine months old and his mum loves the traditional little rompers. I found the pattern on Etsy by a company called Shaka-laka Patterns, I quite like pdf patterns for children as you can print and cut out the size you want without thinking about them growing and needing a bigger size later in the year.

It’s called the Rosa Romper, a little disconcerting as from the blurb it’s obviously aimed at girls, however I decided that with the right fabric and pleats rather than gathers it would be fine. I saw some gorgeous Peter Rabbit fabric on line and ordered a metre. It’s always a risk when buying fabric on line as so much is how it feels, not just the pattern but when this arrived it both looked gorgeous and felt beautiful! It’s organic cotton and whilst it’s a good weight of fabric, it is so soft to handle, perfect for a baby.

The Rosa romper has pleats or gathers for the bottoms and a Peter Pan collar. It buttons down the back and press-studs in the crotch. It has both fully lined and unlined options, I went for lined so I didn’t need to finish all the inner edges! I had a meter length of a white fine cotton lawn which was ideal for the lining.

I’ve not used Shakalaka patterns before but I was quite impressed. It went together beautifully, the instructions were well written and there were useful little tips too. Despite having made clothes for nearly 50 years, I didn’t know that if you sew the curved seam of the collar twice you get a much more even curve!

I fussycut the collar so I had Peter Rabbit running on one side and one of the flopsy bunnies on the other.

Baby clothes are a delight to make but a little fiddly as everything is small…especially the buttons!

My sewing machine now has a name, Dolly the Diva!!!

All I needed was three perfect buttonholes down the back, it’s not asking much of a high spec sewing machine but she made such a song and dance of it not only did she acquire the name, she was nearly thrown out of the window and I think miss Florence, my Luna Lapin, was probably blushing from the language she heard!!!

I did practise ones on a folded scrap of fabric which of course came out perfectly. I went to do the top one and half way down it decides to turn round, making it potentially half the length I needed…I unpicked, practised again, checked it wasn’t catching the stick…three times this happened!!! Eventually I tried the middle one instead and that worked OK. I decided in the end that it wanted a perfectly flat area and because of the collar above and the pleats below . It wasn’t easy achieving this on such a small button-band…The name has stuck!!

The buttons are less than 1/2″ in diameter, I found them in my stash. I was tempted with some little red ones too but these nicely picked out the colour of the darker leaves. I stitched on a Grandma label. and the rompers were complete.

I was a little concerned that maybe it did look a little girly but we popped in yesterday evening and he had just finished his bath, perfect timing as he could try them on straight away. Mum loved them and doesn’t he look cute!

Posted in Dressmaking | Tagged , , | 16 Comments

Staying Home HQAL

Posted on April 3, 2023 by craftycreeky

Apologies for the late arrival of this post, it’s been one of those weeks! I was on annual leave this week and had a nice week of sewing and gardening planned, as the weather wasn’t inclement for gardening I thought ‘Ooh, I’ll paint the conservatory instead, I can paint for the morning and sew in the afternoon!’ Needless to say the ‘quick job’ turned into three full days so now I’m sewing under pressure to get three Easter outfits finished for my grandchildren!! Anyway…..

I have my dancing shoes on!!!

Over the last three weeks I’ve finished the last bit of quilting, trimmed it and bound the edges, I just need to check for loose threads now, never my strong point!

I started this quilt back in 2020, it was one of the wonderful free stitch-a-long patterns the craft community came up with to keep us sane during the long lock-downs. The embroidery patterns were designed by different quilt designers(mainly Australian I think) and the whole project was organised by Natalie Bird of the Birdhouse. I made it from the fabric left over from a quilt called Coming Home, due to the conditions this quilt was started under it was soon called the Staying Home quilt.

There were twenty embroidered and appliqued blocks altogether, all finished to 6″ square. To make it into a useable bed quilt I made twenty simple house blocks, double bordered each block and used most of my last fabric scraps to make the scrappy sashing. I love the way the colours have worked out.

I still haven’t mastered taking photos of quilts, I blame my balance, this is the best of about 10 shots!

I just checked back and I started quilting this back in July last year, so about 9 months at a gentle pace! I’ve done minimal quilting on the embroidered blocks, just enough to hold everything in place, houses are quilted on the ditch with windows added. I whip-stitched the quilting round the windows to make them stand out a bit more. The sashings quilted with hearts. It’s probably easier to see on the back…

The backing as you can see was pieced from leftover fabric, trying to get a landscape appearance, the light fabric at the bottom actually has reflective dots on it so it glows in the dark!!

I tried a couple of fabrics for binding, but eventually decided on this grey/blue design which I had used for some of the sashings. I did my usual double fold method with 2.5″ strips. I always hand stitch my binding down, it may take a few evenings in front of the TV but I much prefer the finish.

I’m well chuffed with this quilt, I love the colours and how its balanced out. With hindsight the only ting I might have done differently is to add another light 1″ border round the whole quilt, it would have just meant I could have done whole hearts round the outer edge instead of part ones. As the saying goes in quilting though, only God’s work is perfect 🙂

I’m just waiting for the instructions for my next project to arrive, hopefully by the time of my next post I’ll have started it. It give you a clue, it’s actually by the same designer!

This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another.  If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.Kathy, Margaret, Deb, Nanette, Sharon, Karrin, Daisy, and  Cathie

I’ll also be linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday

Posted in Quilt-a-long, Quilting | Tagged , , | 17 Comments