Wednesday 15 March 2017

WIP Wednesday - mini QAL



Hi all, and can I just thank everyone who has taken the trouble to visit my blog over the past few weeks, now that I have actually got back into posting more often. I really appreciate it, even more if you have been kind enough to leave a comment. It is so nice to feel connected to other quilters out there.

This week I am plugging away with quilting another old-ish WIP which had reached the finished top stage some time ago. I am in the zone now, and quite enjoy having the Juki set up with walking foot and putting in the lines of quilting, it doesn't need too much in the way of thought, once a decision has been made just how the top will be quilted. The bit I'm not so keen on is the layering... 

In between though, I have been working on something new: I mentioned the two young women I have been teaching to sew over the past few months and our excursion to purchase fabric for their first quilts (towards the end of this post). Well, I decided that I should quilt along with them, and try and keep one jump ahead, just to troubleshoot any problems you understand, but really because I wanted to join in the fun.



So here is what I have been doing. Needless to say, I couldn't really justify buying a new layer cake when I have so much fabric stashed, so my challenge was to use the pinks and greens I had set aside for another project (can't now remember what) some considerable time ago. There are quite a few fabrics from an early collection by Tanya Whelan, Grand Revival, plus others from the stash which I thought might work too.


Pinks and greens are not really my usual choice but I must have liked the fabric or I wouldn't have bought it, and it's good to challenge oneself now and then. Certainly the palette is very fresh and Spring-like, so it feels right for today when the sun is shining and the buds are about to break into leaf.



You will also see that I have made a small mountain of blocks, partly because, as usual, I purchased far more fabric than needed, and partly because I must have always intended to make a large quilt, having bought 5 metres of the lovely green and white floral fabric from the range...


I hope to show you my students' fabric choices next week when they have got a few more of their blocks together, but for now, if you'd like to have a look at the pattern we are using, it is Squares and Strips Bed Quilt by Allison Harris of Cluck Cluck Sew and here is the link to the free tutorial.


The blocks are quick and easy to make and it is a great quilt for a beginner. I modified the cutting so we could use Layer Cakes to avoid waste and yet provide a good variety of prints for relatively little outlay.  I will show you that next week if you are interested, plus some of the girls' blocks if they will let me!


Hope you make progress on your current WIP this week!

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