Friday 30 November 2012

The supermarket bag of scraps quilt

I thought you might like to see my daughter's first attempt at quiltmaking. Kirsty was brought up surrounded by scraps of  fabric and sewing yarns but never showed much interest in picking up a needle...more interesting things in life to pursue at a young age, but now, out of the blue in her thirties  a  creative urge has erupted. Brilliant! The remit was to make a quilt solely from a supermarket bag full of scraps (in case she didn't enjoy quiltmaking!) and the photographs I reckon reinforce the notion that one person's scraps are another persons treasure. Stunning for a first attempt.Da iawn Kirsty!

You could say the quilt was pieced in a day (Construction actually took place during her daughter's afternoon  nap time over a perion of 5 days ). I think she found the informal construction and relaxed ' precision' of the patchwork appealing. Cut and sew and go with the flow sort of approach.She is making this for a friend for Christmas. Lucky friend!

Sunday 4 November 2012

Plan Ahead

Pnawn da pawb (good afternnon all!)
Have just read my last blog to remind me where I was up to. Ah, yes my purple quilt. Well as you can see it's on it's way and on the hoop as we say but it has been a tortuous journey. I don'tknow why. Firstly it  was simply going to be a Welsh Strippy quilt. So I cut  the fabric and sewed strips together. Then I thought - no, that's not right. It needs something to lift it. So a visit to Dilys as I mentioned last time and my mind was reset. That's it I thought. I know where I'm going. So I started unpicking and inserting strips of squared triangles (Hm not sure if that's the right description) So 37 squares sewn together and inserted - no problem. Keep going Kate. Sew in next strip of 37 squares - oh hang on a minute 35 squares fit the length of fabric. Big sigh! The moral of this tale is............if you are sewing 37 pieces of fabric together you have to be pretty accurate with your seem allownaces if you want the next 37 pieces to end up the same length... I won't be doing that  pattern again! However I think it will look cool when it's all done. So quilting for over 25yrs and still not an expert. May this be a note of reassurance to novices. Now as for my next quilt........