The last few days have been bitterly cold with a fierce icy east wind, the ground has been frozen solid and although I had gardening plans they’ve been on hold.
So we followed the necessary parts of our lockdown routines and then the rest of the day loomed ahead.
Thank goodness for sewing is all!
An ideal time to get up to date with writing the blog and to finish the Tumbling Blocks quilt.
Just yesterday I finished writing up the story of ‘Football Fan’ and in it I wrote that Nova had asked for two quilts for her girls. So this is the story of the second quilt ‘Tumbling Blocks’ so far.
Once again I was given the freedom to choose the design with purple and green being the colour choices for this one. I knew that there would be plenty of choice and after showing Nova an inspiration piece I had an idea of the tones and began the search. I was collating the fabrics for both quilts because it was inevitable that another lockdown was coming.
Here is the eventual fabric pull. I was rather surprised to find nothing suitable in my stash but then really pleased to find all but one of these fabrics in Aberdashery the wonderful shop right here in town. Something vital was missing though and when I found the green with white leaves online I knew that was it. It balances the other greens and lifts the whole pull. It’s sometimes a bit of a risk buying on line but I have to say that now I have a range of reliable quality suppliers I buy from I never worry about it.
I’ve wanted to try the ‘Tumbling blocks’ pattern for a while, I love that ‘box’ illusion. I looked around for a pattern and found one in a back copy of ‘Love Patchwork and Quilting’ magazine.
Their patterns clear and comprehensive. Even so ‘Tumbling Blocks’ did need concentration when it came to the piecing and there were some moments!
I did eventually get the hang of the sequencing and the blocks were put together in rows and the the rows joined. The back was to be plain purple so I put together a row of blocks to add interest to the back.
The ‘sandwich’ is when you layer the quilt top, the wadding and the backing together. All three layers need to be lined up and perfectly smooth and flat. Sounds simple really – not always. This one was quite well behaved. Having layered them I began pinning from the middle, moving outward an smoothing the quilt as I went.
Now it’s time to quilt. I’d been planning this all the way through and had decided on free motion quilting with a sort of daisy chain . The daisy chain would begin in one corner and move down the quilt, branching as it went. Free motion is when the machine’s grip of the fabric is turned off and the operator moves the fabric to ‘draw’ with the needle and thread.
What hadn’t decided though was about that thread. I had a multicoloured, mainly green and purple thread that could work well but I just couldn’t make up my mind so eventually I did an Instagram poll and went with the result, a very decisive ‘YES’ for the variegated thread. Get me using an Instagram poll!
This was clearly going to be far more visible on the back of the quilt which was good, it would leave the blocks speak for themselves on the top and give interest on the back.
There was only the binding left to do now having measured, cut, pressed it in half along it’s length I sewed it to the front by machine then as always hand finished the back.
Just before Christmas a friend asked me to make a little drawstring pouch big enough to hold her car and house keys. Of course I said yes but not until the quilts were done. So as hand sewing tends to happen in front of the TV in the evening there was time on a rainy day for a little pouch.
So ‘Tumbling Blocks’ is off to it’s new forever home to continue it’s story and I’m taking a break from sewing to re-decorate the sewing room. Now there’s an undertaking.
