As one door closes.......

...another one opens! No more Zakka for me to sew along with, but instead I have jumped right into another sew a long, this time, with the lovely Leanne from She Can Quilt. We are following the Mod Pop pattern by Julie - {pattern available here}and for some inexplicable reason, probably to do with the size of our bed, I have opted to do the Queen sized quilt - eek!!

When I saw Leanne's version of this quilt, I was hooked. I know, all those curves, but sometimes you have to have a wee challenge in life.......
So today, I made a start on cutting into fabric - my choices were a bit serendipitous - I found about 3m of a creamy beige, just patterned and no more, fabric, in my stash - I don't really have large quantities of anything in my stash so this was a bonus.
Recently I bought some furnishing fabric to make a small Roman blind for our shower room, which is located just off our bedroom - both rooms are yet to be tackled in the general makeover that we have been undertaking since moving here 2 yrs ago. So, the fabric for the blind was kind of beachy, we live by the sea, so my colours were coming to me........add to the mix, a Lucy's Crab Shack charm pack, a Pure charm pack and I was off and running. I have added in some more yardage -

I don't think I have enough yet, but plenty to be going on with. My plan is to make my background scrappy, but co-ordinated, and the focal fabric, the cream.I don't know about others here in the UK, but a pattern calling for 7yds of anything is quite daunting from a cost point of view so I am happier going down the drips and drabs route.
Meanwhile, earlier in the day, full of Monday morning vim & vigour, I set to and started the quilting on my Velocity strippy quilt. You might recall I am making this in three long sections & each section is double sided, comprising two of the Velocity prints.
So, some stats from today's wee session. The section is 2.25yds long and 25" wide. I used Aurifil 50wt cotton thread, colour 2600, a lovely soft grey that is perfect for this fabric - thank goodness for 1300m reels - I filled and used 3 bobbins.
I quilted 38 vertical, but not strictly parallel, lines - very liberating, no marking required.
And then I quilted 63 horizontal lines in groups of three - I will admit to getting "my skirt caught in my knickers" for a few inches along one side, but a few sweary words later, all was resolved.

 I love the look when straight lines cross each other, I think it reminds me of chocolate bars.

 For those interested in such things, I use Hobbs 80/20, love it, I pin but don't baste and I found this quilt panel did not "creep" as I feared it might, dealing with such length. I also ran my iron lightly over it before starting to quilt - I find it almost sticks the layers together.

And finally - towards the end of my 2.5 hour quiltathon, Lily, my beloved machine, was sounding a bit rough so it was time for a little TLC.

                                                   Almost as good as squeezing a spot!