Do Good Stitches ** Finish **

Last September was the quilter for our Do Good Stitches group - the Happiness Circle. So I chose a wonky, improv type log cabin. The colour scheme was turquoise/aquas and greys with the centre blocks being a red or yellow. Here are the two blocks I made for the quilt.

And here are all the blocks I received. Our group is not quite 12 so I was lacking a few, but luckily I have enough of these colours in my stash to make up the blocks.

To make it a little bigger I decided to add a border around the edge and I had some Kona ash that worked well and made it just the right size.

As usual, I didn't have enough of a single fabric for the backing. So I made a back in the style of the front - a large log cabin block. I am trying to use up some of the fabrics I have had for a long time, so this was perfect. I rather like the large style block.

The Back

Having done several quilts lately that required lots of quilting I was ready for a fast finish, so I kept the quilting simple on this quilt. I did organic lines across the quilt, super fast!

And look a label. I am terrible at labeling quilts. But this was simple as I was sent this little label and just had to attach it. They are perfect. 

When binding a quilt I usually opt to machine stitch the binding in place and then finish by hand. But this time I thought I would try sewing the binding down by machine. I have done this before but find I have to take it out more times than I can bare because it just doesn't work well. But this time it went like a dream, I couldn't believe it. No seam ripping!! 

And there we have it, another finished quilt ready for giving to a charity - just need to decide which one.

The Front

This was one of the projects on my Finish-a-long list for this first quarter! So good to tick another one off the list.

Stats:

Pattern: Improv/wonky log cabin

Quilting: Free motion organic lines, by me

Fabric: Group quilt, so lots of different fabrics

Size: 58 x 70" 

Started: September 2017

Finished: February 11, 2018

Quilt group box exchange

I recently joined a small quilt group that just started meeting on Friday evenings again. It's really informal and we meet at someones house. I have been taking my binding to finish, a perfect project to carry around. 

This week we started a quilt box exchange. We each create a box with a theme, colour scheme and a sample block. Each month we swap the boxes and make a block for that box according to the instructions inside. There are 10 of us taking part so towards the end of the year we should all have almost enough blocks for a quilt. 

There is quite a range of themes - summer, simple patchwork blocks, disappearing blocks, Christmas, shabby chic and Halloween. 

My theme is halloween and my colours are purple, green and orange because they were the colours in my halloween fabrics! I decided to give two options for blocks I'd like. Firstly, a wonky star block made using the tutorial here, and a choice of sizes. I am not thinking a rigid 4 x 3 quilt layout, so hopefully I will get a mixture of sizes, or I'll just make some myself.

12.5" Wonky Star

6.5" Wonky Star

The second choice of block is a halloween style block and my example block is a haunted house made using paper piecing. The colours don't look as distinct here as they actually are. The orange and yellow look the same, but they are actually quite different.

We don't get to see the blocks being made for us until the end of the swap, which is going to be really hard when the boxes are in the room. Guess that's part of the fun!

This month the box I received had instructions to make a light pink and grey simple patchwork block. Luckily the light pink fabrics were provided as I don't have much in the way of that colour these days. I just happen to have a book out of the library - The Quilt Block Cookbook by Amy Gibson with lots of individual blocks. So I chose the Winding block from this book and made it: 

Windsong

Looking forward to swapping the box at the end of the month and having to make another random block. I like variety so this is great for entertainment.