A Bit of a Furtle in June

As the last few months have all run into each other it follows that my blog post is similar.

I haven't as yet lost my enthusiasm to get some UFOs done and dusted making use of all this extra time.

First up isn't really a UFO as it was only started a few months ago in anticipation of a birth - baby not quite due but her quilt is awaiting............

For the binding of this quilt I brought the backing forward to the front and machine stitched it down. I have never actually done this before and am quite happy with the result - I wanted to use the same fabric as backing for the binding so it made sense. I followed a tutorial on The Crafty Nomad

My next big task for June was to tackle the quilting of my Irish Chain that I made I think back in 2018/19. I was inspired by Rita at Red Pepper Quilts. Her tutorial for her version included diagrams to ensure nesting seams and I followed it slavishly. I wanted it to be made from scraps but with a controlled coloured focus too. So I plotted it all out on EQ7 and off I went. I really enjoyed making the blocks for this. There were 25 blocks, each containing 49, 2.5" squares so a total of 1225 squares - crumbs!!

Once again, I went against the habit of a lifetime and stitched the binding down by machine. I have always enjoyed hand stitching a binding but lately find too much hand stitching sore on my hands so am now quite happy to use the machine. The finished quilt measures 72" square and I am so pleased with it, there are a lot of fabric memories in there.

Next on the production line is a current work in progress, I have started to quilt it so shouldn't be too long to declare a finish. It's another scrappy number that I started piecing in the couple of weeks running up to lockdown. I started playing with scraps and did a bit of improv log cabin.

Final arrangement of logs -

I quite liked it and decided to keep growing it medallion style. 

I rather fancied a round of these little 3 -D pinwheels but stopped after four, too much like hard work.

If it was to be an actual quilt I had to go a bit bigger so really shopped my scraps, big and small.

I stopped at this point, about 57" square. It's a bit of nonsense really but kept my mind occupied at a difficult time. And as I say, I have almost finished quilting - I'll show it finished next month along with the snazzy backing that I pieced from stash.

During all this frenzied quilting of the last 100 days I might have started piecing another top - it is a disease isn't it? I have a drawer labelled, 'Kaffe, batiks and Kathy Doughty'. I came to thinking they had spent long enough hanging about and set to wondering what I could concoct. I didn't have much of any of them, the Kaffe fabrics were mainly wovens, not many batiks in there, but a gorgeous bundle of Kathy Doughty brought back from Oz in 2018. So far I am calling it my Marmite quilt but I secretly love it and it will take its place as next in queue for quilting.

So this was my final layout of the 8" blocks but as I snowballed all the big squares I created bonus HSTs never realising they would trim down to 3" finished patches. Well I had to use them too, silly not to.

And that's a wrap for June folks, thanks for having a look.

As usual I am linking to Archie's Furtling Adventures.