Quilting Update - November 2023

I've been meaning to post this blog for weeks now, as the last month or two has been quite busy in terms of working on quilting projects, so I thought I'd do an update post to bring you up to scratch with the projects I've completed, started or am still part way through.

I've finished two quilt projects in the last two months. Probably the main one was the navy quilt I made for LB's bed. It just needed binding and I eventually got around to doing it, mainly to clear some space in the sewing room, as things were mounting up and cluttering up the space. 

I had some plain navy fabric left over, so I used some of this for the binding. I'm happy with the final outcome of this project:

The second quilt project I've finished lately, is the Xmas wreath quilt. 

After finishing the quilt top and then making some wadding from wool mix fabric samples and other odds and ends of wool fabric I had in my stash, I eventually sandwiched the whole quilt together and bound the edges. Here's a picture of the wadding I made:

Another patchwork in itself, it's not pretty, but it wasn't going to be seen and worked really well for this project. I was very happy with the weight it gave to the quilt and the fact it used up so much otherwise unused fabric.

For the backing and binding, I used an IKEA festive table cloth. It was something I bought years ago and never used as a table cloth, because it was predominantly white and would be liable to stain way too easily. I'm much happier using it for this project, and the festive foliage pattern on it fits in well with the festive foliage theme of the fabrics contained in the quilt. Another make that I'm very happy with and I will enjoy sitting watching TV under this quilt in the lead up to Xmas.

With two big quilts finished, that left just one large quilt outstanding, which I'm making to put on the bed in the sewing room. This grey quilt hasn't been worked on since I last posted about it, but my printer is working again, so I can now print off the paper pieces when I need to. Here's a picture of progress so far:

I probably won't pick this one up again until the New Year, unless I get a sudden urge to work on it, especially now I've started a new project. 

I always like to have at least a couple of things on the go, so that I can chop and change and keep my interest. The new project is a little more complicated and I've already posted a picture of the first completed block, so here is a picture of the second and third blocks that I recently made:

I've used up some hexie flowers that I'd made previously as the centres of the blocks. I hadn't actually made them into anything and probably never would, so it felt good to incorporate at least some of them into this project. I think this one will be a long, slow burn project, that will probably take at least six months if not more to finish, but that is fine with me.

The only other quilting project that I've got on the go, is a small project, that I started months ago and then put aside.  Here's a picture of it's progress so far:

I think I will probably try to finish this soon, although it's not one of my favourite projects, as it's a bit random. It just needs to be made a little bigger and then it will be big enough to make into a cushion cover. It was a useful project for using up some very small scraps of fabric that I had kicking around, but I do find the size of the pieces a little fiddly. I don't really like the cross pattern either, but sometimes you have to try things to realise that you don't like them.

Talking of small scraps, I did make a couple of other very small projects with some fabric scraps recently.  The first were these hanging wreaths made with tiny hexie shapes. I'm planning to put these on the Xmas tree this year. I didn't use festive fabric, instead choosing fabrics with pink in them, as there are quite a few pink decorations on the tree.

I also made some tree decorations with some felted fair isle sweaters that I had kept for many years. The fairisle patterns leant themselves well to bauble shaped decorations. I like how they turned out. I just used a simple bauble template that I downloaded online. I have one more to make from another piece of felted fairisle sweater, that needed a wash for further shrinkage. I'm just waiting for it to dry and I'll make the final one.

So, I've had a pretty busy time making and finishing projects this last couple of months. I hope that your are enjoying any crafting projects that you are currently working on.