Two down, three to go!

I have finally finished my second quilt in Peg's challenge. It's a Chaos Crumb quilt in pastels, to show how good this block looks in restricted colours (for those who find scrappy just too scarey!).

It's a very dull and wet day here, so the photo looks a bit dull too, but you can just see the flowers quilted on the white spaces. It's a cot quilt (I've just found out that one of my colleagues is pregnant with her first baby! Congratulations Katharine and Mike!) as I seem to be needing quite a few of these this year!

I've also put the borders on quilt number 3. These houses were the result of a block swap. You made up a block, put it in a bag with the pattern, and then passed it round the group. When the bag gets back to you, you've had the chance to make 10 blocks you might not have tried before, and got enough blocks for a quilt. I loved these houses, but they have been languishing in my UFO box for several years! I orginally put the green border all the way round, but felt it was too heavy, so added blue at the top. I'm not sure it's working completely - maybe I need something to soften the transition. Any ideas? I'll try and get it layered today (we won't be doing much in this current weather!) and can easily add any improvements then.

Saturday night in

It's always good to get out and see friends, a film or a play, but once in a while, it's nice to have a night in. After a few busy weekends, holidays, doing front of house for a drama production, a wedding and meet-up with some old friends, we had a Saturday when the calendar was blank. Bliss!

This is the cue for a curry (cooked in the oven, like a casserole, so it's ready whenever you are), a glass (or two) of red wine, Dr. Who on the tele and then an evening sewing in front of the box for me, and some watching of football and 'High Fidelity' for DH. I watched 'High Fidelity' too, although we've both seen it before. If you haven't seen it, I can recommend it, as it's one of the few films which are as good as the book, and if you like Jack Black, it's a must.


I have decided to quilt one of my Chaos Crumb quilts, ready for the workshop later this year, and after much deliberation, felt that although it would be possible to machine quilt the sashing, the blocks needed to be hand quilted.

Well, I say hand quilting - it's a cross between running stitch and big stitch quilting, but it works for me. I would have used a dark beige thread, if I had any, but I only had lilac, which seems to have worked well with all the different colours.

I have just quilted about a quarter of an inch in from the seam line on each string, to avoid the bulk, an idea copied from Gwen Marston's string quilts book. I did nearly three of the nine big blocks in an evening, so it'll be interesting to see how long the whole thing takes me!

Meanwhile, I have finished machine quilting my baby quilt, and apart from the label, it's ready for its recipient. It still looks rather pale to me, but I'm sure any baby would be happy to be sick on it!

More chaos crumb

Later this year, I am demonstrating Chaos Crumb blocks at my local group, Piecemakers so I thought I would do some more experiments with these fabulous blocks. I have recently bought a copy of Gwen Marston's 'Liberated String Piecing', which has some gorgeous techniques and quilts in it. I think what makes Gwen's quilts so lovely, is that they are set very carefully and beautifully quilted. I decided to set the Chaos crumb blocks in fours and then sash them with cornerstones.

Once this is quilted it will be fine. I'm going to bind it with the same blue as the cornerstones (I think) which will pull it together.
Here is a clearer photo of a four patch. I just love those scrappy blocks, and can't stop making them! My next trial is to make some blocks using a restricted colour selection - more of which later.Tomorrow, DH, DS, DD and I are going on an eight day family holiday to the US! We'll be staying in Las Vegas and San Francisco, so if you're in any of the quilt shops there, look out for me!