Quilts 1700-2010

I finally made it to the V&A today - it was getting to the point where I knew if I didn't just get myself there today then before I knew it the exhibition would close and I would be left feeling incredibly stupid that there had been an exhibition about what I do just 30 minutes away in my favourite museum and I HADN'T GONE! Eeep!

I really enjoyed it, I would highly recommend the audio guide if you haven't been yet. They give it to you on an ipod touch so it's very easy to navigate back and forth and it has video clips and close ups as well as commentary. It really made me pay attention to things that I might otherwise have overlooked. It also made me cry at one point....don't worry, it was a 'hold back the tears with a gulp' rather than 'huge blubbery sobs'.

I enjoyed a little retail therapy afterwards although I have to say I was rather disappointed with the liberty designs. I came through to the shop with plans to buy a selection and make a hanging to remind me of the exhibition but I could only find one fabric that I liked and, well, one fabric does not a quilt make (I know, I know, apart from whole cloth!).

So, that was my day :) I am ashamed to say that my little yellow quilty is still in progress, although it has progressed a little. I need to push on with it tomorrow because I am off for a girly weekend in Bath starting early Friday morning and I REALLY don't want it to go into another week!

A week on

Here we are a week after I posted my half square triangles top and it still isn't finished! Yesterday I got around to extending it - I added 4 more rows in the end, and I pieced a back for it - mainly all the yellow but with a stripe of blocks of the three fabrics about 2/3s of the way down, sorry, I'll take a picture once it's off the machine. For now this is how it looks, 3 hours into quilting.

I decided to do pebbling (I'm kind of winging it!) instead of stippling and I have been amazed at how much longer it is taking, also, how much thread it is eating! I decided I wanted a variegated thread and I found one at the evil hobby store chain down the road. As an absolute precaution I decided to buy 2 reels and I am really (reel - y, snigger) glad I did because I have filled my bobbin 3 times already. I am hoping that it will soften a lot when I wash it though because the dense stitching is making it feel quite cardboardy at present.

The Quilter

You may recall me telling you that Anne Williams had been over to interview me for The Quilter back in February?

The issue arrived in my post box last Friday and I am delighted; it astounds me that she made all my babbling into a coherent article!

For those of you who are not members The Quilter is the quarterly membership publication of The Quilters' Guild of the British Isles. You can find out all about them at www.quiltersguild.org.uk

I took another day off from the big quilt today as I am still suffering mightily from the sniffles. Most of the day was spent dozing but then by 4pm I needed to sew. I decided to play around with half square triangles. I've had this idea to experiment with using the reverse of the fabric for a while. I limited myself to three fabrics and used them in all combinations.

It measures 20x30" at the moment so tomorrow I will add two more columns and two more rows to bring it to a usable baby quilt size. I think I'll quilt it using a yellow thread, probably stippling.

I woke up this morning feeling really grotty, yesterday I wasn't sure if I had hay fever or the start of a cold, today I know it is a cold! I decided to take a day off from the quilt because I am missing finishing things! I have only done one other large size quilt before and I do find it challenges my need for immediate gratification. I decided to look though my UFOs and pulled out a top I had pieced and appliqued for a table runner. I managed to get it all quilted this afternoon then got the binding finished this evening. Wow, it feels good to have a finished product!

This evening was my local quilt group (connecting threads) meet up and we had Wendy Lowes as our guest speaker. She does amazing things with fabric origami and brought loads of work in for us to see as well as physically demonstrating some of the folding. It was very interesting and I would highly recommend going to one of her talks.

Here is one of her pieces - called rose garden that was done from a brief given by the quilters guild

I have finished the sashing and put all the blocks together - now it is coming time for the moment of truth as I find out whether I need to make anymore geese for the border. I think I will sew the three borders together then sew each side to the blocks so that I am only scrunching the whole top up once rather than three times as I stitch around it.

woohoo

I have finished the blocks! I will trim them all later (I am a bit scared at how much I will lose of some of them, fingers crossed!) then I need to work out the sashing and discover whether I have enough left over geese for the border...I do hope so!

Block Seven

Block Eight

Block Nine

DQS 9

You may have noticed a certain (ahem) button on my sidebar? Yes, dear reader, you are correct, I am one of the lucky ones to make it into Doll Quilt Swap 9. As a relative Flickr swap newbie I was very pleased to be accepted and I am really looking forward to finding out who my partner is and stalking away!

I've had a lovely day today, my best chum and I were planning on taking her son to the seaside but when we woke up the weather looked a little iffy so we decided to go to Camden instead. I've had a little snooze and a looong catch up chat with my sister on the phone (must've been, ooh, at least 24 hours since we last spoke) and now I'm going to watch the end of One Fine Day (George Clooney...rrrrowr) while working on those last few blocks - I will try not to drool on them.

six down, three to go

Here's block number 6 - I am about half way through cutting the pieces for the last three blocks. I haven't been cutting in bulk all the way through, I have been cutting then piecing but now that the end is in sight it is much easier to think through the fabric options and much more bearable to cut it all at once - having said that, all that is left is to cut all the small white blocks and that is when I suddenly though 'well, I really must update my blog'. Mmmm, cutting those 2 7/8" squares is not my favourite part.

fun finds

I was out for lunch with my Gran today (a weekly occurrence; I take her to the supermarket, she takes me to lunch or a variation on the theme, e.g. I take her to the doctors, she takes me to breakfast, I insist on paying, she then buys me a gift. You get the idea!) anyway, we had gone somewhere different than usual and I remembered that last time we had popped into Oxfam in search of hidden treasures and I had hit the jackpot in several packets of bias binding. Ok, I admit, this might not be EVERYONE'S idea of a jackpot but I imagine that if you are reading my blog then either you share my fondness of things of the haberdashery persuasion or you know me personally and my excitement will not surprise you. So, back to today, of course, I suggested we return to this source of textile goodies and here is what I gleefully took off with.

the black roll is satin binding....not what I would normally use but impossible to resist and how much room can it take up? There is 20m on that baby! Then there are 3 30cm zips and 1 20cm, 3.6m of white bias binding (drool) and 10m of a flat tape - somewhat like a shoelace, I think it will be perfect for drawstring cord. I was very happy to part with just under £10 for this little stash :D

spot the mistake!

I just had to post this before correcting it because I didn't notice what I had done until I looked at the picture on my pc! How on earth I didn't notice while I was pressing it I will never know....anyway....here is block 5...kinda!

Fourth Block