Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Another new project

Yes, I have started yet another project. This one is made from fabric supplied by Helen at our Monday Modern quilters group last Monday - I think I took home 13 fat quarters. Helen provided the fabric and a piece of pre-cut batting and challenged us to make a small quilt for a child. The batting basically dictated the size - it's about 46" x 52".

The fabrics I chose included three from a collection and others that blended in. I like the combination of blues, purples, and black, although it was looking a bit too cohesive when I laid out all of the fabrics when I got home from our meeting. My first instinct was to do something fast and simple - like 4" squares. But, where's the challenge in that?

Instead I decided I would make a medallion quilt with a round robin approach to the design (translation: no planning for each border until I get to it). I made the 16" centre block by ironing on two sizes of flowers and then using a machine buttonhole stitch to sew them down. I'm happy with the results, but the flowers are quite stiff - I may have to rethink the fusible product that I used.


From the centre block I worked my way out adding three sets of borders. So far so good. Now I'm a little stuck - the quilt measures 42" square which is a bit on the small side. I thought maybe a couple more plain borders to "contain" the random squares, but I really don't have enough fabric for that - all that is left are a few strips and one more fat quarter. Even a 2" border would take more than a fat quarter. Maybe I could dig into my stash (like I did for the solid seafoam 1" borders).


I have several projects in the pipeline that I need to start and finish by the first weekend of November. These will be used as demos for our merchant stand at the Festival of Quilts - a banner quilt with our logo on it and a machine embellished crazy quilt teddy bear. Meanwhile, I'm off the the States for three weeks between now and then. Did I mention that I started a new job last week...

So, I may just need to call this one done and move on to quilting it before the weekend. Any suggestions?

Monday Modern Quilters exhibit starts next week

For anyone in the Auckland area - a few of my pieces will be on exhibit at Highwic house in Epsom.