I left you all with the completely scrappy log cabin which I felt was made with a fervour I rarely display in the sewing room. After making the Log Cabin section I decided to grow it into a medallion style quilt and kept going, rather ignoring my personal plan to finish UFOs during lockdown. I made another quilt top - this came in at about 54" square and has joined the "waiting to quilt and bind" queue.
Highlighted below is the three dimensional windmill block - I did think for a couple of minutes of making a whole border of them - no way!
I showed my first Lockdown Finish last month, my Bee Quilt.
The next finish was a good bit quicker to pull off, and that was My Small World, pattern by Jen Kingwell and I recall the online frenzy of us all trying to obtain the pattern that was published in a magazine. I really enjoyed making this, it was very footery, using up scraps and piecing small shapes and blocks. I think I started it in 2016, made decent progress, even got the sky section quilted and then - it was overtaken - and condemned to the box under the bed..........
In 2018 on our Great Aussie adventure, I was lucky enough to visit Jen's shop, Amitie Textiles in Torquay. Oh such a glorious store and I was ridiculously excited to see the original My Small World, draped across a table. Sigh.
So two years later my version saw the light of day and I finished off the quilting. I gave it a faceless binding and it is now on the wall. My Small World could not be a more apt title.
In between all of this frantic activity in the sewing room, I also made enough face masks to keep my close family going should the need arise and only this week, in Scotland, they have become advisory for shopping trips so my time was not wasted.
My next Lockdown finish is a biggie. Back in 2017 I started following the Bella Skill Builder quilt run monthly by the Fat Quarter Shop online. It was to be my first quilt using just solids.
2017 was a busy year for my family but somehow I must have kept up with my blocks and planned a way to enlarge the original pattern and to construct it to allow QAYG. I even roughly layered up the three sections and then they were condemned, can you guess? - yes, to the box under the bed........
until this month.
Out they came, the layering up was tidied and pressed and then basted and pinned. For years now I have pinned only but I have found the basting stage of this quilt quite soothing. Each third of the quilt draped across my sewing table nicely, allowed me to tug and smooth, baste and pin as well as listening to the radio.
And then came the quilting. I kept giving myself little targets. Two days to baste each third and then two days to quilt. Well, I am delighted to report that today I have completed my straight line quilting, using my walking foot as a guide, it's done, approximately 180 rows of it. Here are the three chunks awaiting joining, followed by a close up of some of the quilting.
As I trimmed, I realised that the rather graphic backing fabric (an Ikea duvet cover) might work as binding. I'll keep that to hopefully show off a finish next month.
I also managed to find 90" wide solid white fabric that will give me joining strips that don't need to be made with joins. If you know what I mean.
This full on approach to my UFOs is definitely keeping me going through these strange times. My days would be terribly long without this obsession.......
Next in line is my Irish Chain quilt, top ready to progress.
I also need to get on with a planned quilt for the arrival of my first Great Niece at the end of July. It is to feature most of the machine embroidered animals I showed last month in the baby book and is quite time consuming, a good thing eh?
Keep on keeping on, and stay safe and well.
I am linking as always to Mini Archie's Furtling Adventures
