Tuesday 15 April 2008

My Quilt Project - progress

I can truthfully say this is "my first quilt project" as my first EVER quilt project is still lying abandoned in a bag unfinished! And here it IS .. ta-daaa .. (not quite finished, but with better prospects of being finished!)

For £2 a bundle it was the centre panel of some 16 8.5" squares made up of strips from the bundle of pink fabrics that started the process. Originally I intended to make samples up to demonstrate "colour" as part of my course and then with my enjoyment of the crazy patch theme, I decided to make it up in a similar way but felt this style would be "easier" to manage and quicker to make up the blocks! Adding the inner border at another £2ish, the outer border and backing (a delicious sugary pink) ringing up at some £40 and £12 for the wadding, my "£2" sample has ended up rather expensive! eekkk .. HOWEVER, as everyone who crafts KNOWS, its not cheap what we do and we don't necessarily do it FOR cheapness either!

Its ended being some 58" square and looking really rather splendid - but a heck of a task to get it through the machine! It sits now draped over the bannister awaiting further quilting before binding the edges which you'll see are still pinned at the outer edge.

Poised at the top of my stairs hanging onto the bannister and peering over the top of my stepladders I see Bertie eyeing up his chances of getting ONTO the quilt as it lays across my drop leafed table being pinned together in stages prior to quilting.
I advise Bertie in strong tones that he is NOT to jump up ..

.. which he duly ignores (naughty cat! he is, in fact, now banned permanently from my sewing room and I'm attempting to train him to accept this after he has repeatedly sought my purple pin cushion and scattered pins and needles all over the house and I'm concerned he'll lose my needles I mean hurt himself on my needles!)


As you can see, I've not quite got the hang of this discipline thing yet .. but as official inspector of all things crafty, EVERYTHING must first be thoroughly inspected.

Fair took me 10mins to get it UNDER my machine! I was exhausted after one seam! at one point I'd got a heap of bulky quilt over my left shoulder, both hands agrip and was toying with the notion of using my TEETH to turn the corner! this is a BIG project! and it weighs a lot!



Here it is on the floor, all the inside blocks and the borders are sewn through the layers using my walking foot to anchor the quilt, all that remains is to decide how best to tackle the decorative quilting and then bind the edges!

It looks quite crumpled, thats because it IS quite crumpled! after all the man-handling to get it machined - bit like curtains, almost not worth ironing!

6 comments:

Val said...

This is looking lovely and it's PINK!

Butterfly said...

LUV IT! LUV IT! YOU DID GOOD!

SewIknit2 said...

Thanks Val! it IS as you say, very PINK!! how are you these days? hows the tooth? (ouch!)

Thanks Wilda! I'm currently wrestling with the free mot quilting but am THRILLED with the results, sew far!
how's your button blocks coming along?

Sue

dawn said...

I really like your quilt!

Jules said...

OMG--LOVE IT! I want to steal it! I can't imagine anyone doing any better on a first quilt. Wonderful work!!

SewIknit2 said...

Thanks very much, Dawn and Jules! as you can see, I've now finished the quilt and it IS rather yummy!
Sue