Monday 23 February 2015

A Lovely Year of Finishes - February Finish

My primary goal for this month (post here) was to get all my moderinstabee blocks sewn together and to create a backing, as I don't have any pieces of fabric large enough to fit the front!



The top came together really quickly. I added a sashing of 1.5", finished.



I had a couple of blocks that had an off-white background so I used them on the back with some scraps of aqua and grey that were left over.



I even managed to get it basted last week! Now I just need to decide how I want to quilt it! This is my usual stumbling point!






So I achieved my goal for the month! But I am still hoping I might get to start the quilting before the month is out!

Linking up with 
A lovely year of finishes


Friday 20 February 2015

Flowering Lone star ** finish **!

This is my first big finish of the year! My Flowering Lone Star.


Front

Back

I am really pleased I finally got round to finishing the quilting! The pattern is by Melissa at Sew BitterSweet Designs and I was one of several pattern testers way back last summer some time! It's a really good pattern, lots of details and explains everything in simple steps and with lots of pictures! I like picture instructions!

It was fun to see how different all the quilts looked just by changing the fabrics and colours. Melissa blogged about the pattern launch here and shows all the test quilts in various stages of completion.

I blogged about the details of this quilt and it came together here.

So here I just have some pictures of the completed quilt!

The quilting took me quite some time, but was really fun to experiment with different designs. The areas of white space were large enough to play with different patterns but not too large that they went on forever!


Quilting detail



We had a run of glorious sunny weather just recently and I somehow persuaded my eldest to hold the quilt for me, she must have wanted me to do something! I love how the sun shines through this one revealing the stars (and the body!) on the back.




More pictures of the quilting, just because!



To finish this quilt was one of my Finish Along Q1 goals! Yay, another one ticked off the list.

Linking up with Finish it up Friday over at Crazy Mom Quilts.



Quilt Stats:
Pattern (front): Flowering Lonestar by Melissa @ Sew BitterSweet Designs

Pattern (back): Mainly my design using the lonestar idea from the front but not the y-seams and varying sizes!
Fabrics: All Kona solids
Quilted: by me using Aurifil 50 weight White
Started: June 2014
Finished: Feb 2015
Size: 50" x 50"

Thursday 5 February 2015

A Lovely Year of Finishes - February Goal

So for the month of February! I want to get these blocks put together. 

Moderninstabee blocks

I was part of a moderninstabee group this last year, it it just coming to an end now. I have completed the last block and just need to send it off to the queen bee. For my first year taking part in a bee I consider it a success on the whole. 

I received blocks from 10 members of the bee, but have a total of 13 blocks (a couple of ladies sent me two blocks, so generous, and I made 2). 

I asked for aqua and grey or yellow and grey with a white background. Sadly two blocks arrived with an off white background and not a white background and they stand out too much for my liking so they can go on the back. 

I have unstitched and resewn some of them!! Yes, I do consider this quite mad! I am really quite picky about some things and points is one (mental note: next time don't pick a block with lots of points!) Also one block was nearly an inch under the finished size of the others which I felt was too much to try and fudge. And one had some seams that were coming loose. But I liked the blocks and I didn't want them to sit in a box gathering dust forever more so I have rectified some of the issues and now I can move on.

I was thinking of doing the quilt as you go method but have changed my mind on that and have decided tol assemble the top and make a backing like normal.


So this months goal is to get the quilt top all sewn together and make a backing. If I can get it basted and ready for quilting that would be good too, but it's a short month, so we'll see how we go.

Linking up with:
A lovely year of finishes