Welcome to Saturday Quilting Bring & Share. Bring along you projects (or a cuppa) and enjoy finding out what other patchwork-quilters around the world are working on. Just use the links below to click into our worldwide quilting community. If you find inspiration or a handy tip don’t forget to leave a message in the comments box of the blog posts you read.
My patchwork week has swung between two very different projects – big vs small. The small project is a mini-quilt wall hanging, find out more about that in my recent post, Add a flange for a pop of colour.
The BIG project is the double Irish chain quilt I began piecing earlier in the month. Over the past 24 hours I’ve got to grips with piecing a backing and finally adding the borders to the quilt top. All that puzzling and piecing took quite a while. Just before lunch today, I pushed back the sofas in our lounge to create a large enough space to spread out the backing, cut the wadding to size and then centre the quilt top.
Sorry about the low quality of this photo. I had to stand on a chair and use a mix of daylight and artificial light.
This was the first time I had seen the whole of the quilt top – there isn’t space in my sewing room to open it out completely.
Next up will be the quilting. It’s going to be quite a physical job as the quilt sandwich measures 84″ square (that’s more than 2 metres!). I’ve decided to stitch a cross hatch pattern using a light yellow variegated thread (Aurifil 3920).
Here’s a selection of the blog posts I’ve enjoyed reading through over the past week. I hope you find plenty of interest and inspiration too:
Christa Watson is half-way through a whole series of short machine quilting design tutorials. They are easy to watch and a useful resource.
Diann is making house blocks. The latest one was inspired by the football team her family supports and involved cutting up a t-shirt!
Pineapple blocks are a great way to use up string scraps. Vicki is concentrating on using orange/brown fabrics with neutrals. I have the same Creative Grids pineapple ruler that she is using and recommend it if you are intending to make a lot of pineapple blocks.
Spider Web blocks are another very effective way to use up string scraps. Rachel has been making some of these blocks. She is using fabric as a foundation. When I learned how to make these blocks we used interfacing. I just searched for my post about the blocks I made. It gave me an unexpected jolt as the post includes a photo of my parents and a paragraph about Mother’s Day. This year will be the first without my Mum.
There’s a strong ‘string’ theme going on this week! Deb has been making multi-coloured 10″ string blocks. They look great!. She’s positioned four grey blocks in the quilt top to give a bit of a break from all the bright colours.
Finishing a UFO is always cause for celebration! Nancy has one to celebrate, left unfinished since 2019. She shares the block pattern which creates a lovely wavy movement across the quilt top – definitely one to book mark.
Wow! Linda has just celebrated the 17th anniversary of her blog, Flourishing Palms. I always enjoy reading Linda’s posts. She is an accomplished patchwork quilter, enjoys using different techniques, playing with shapes and colour. Her posts also include the other crafts she enjoys and interesting insights into life in Florida. Linda is very generous and thoughtful in the replies she makes to comments left on her blog.
Happy Stitching!
Allison
PS. Please do sign up for my newsletter – I’ll include links to any blog posts you may have missed and news about my new project, The Patchwork Hub at Home. I promise not to overwhelm your inbox!
Well Allison… what a surprise to read your last paragraph, and feel warm inside for all the nice things you said about my blog. Thank you! We both know how it feels to hit “publish” on a blog post, and then wonder, “is anyone out there reading it?” I’m always grateful when someone comments. That’s also when I try to make a new friend. 🙂 Cute flange on the mini quilt. I’ve added a flange to a few of my quilts and always appreciate the extra color pop. I am also so impressed with your double Irish chain quilt top! It’s a pretty, unique color combination, and remarkable to think you put it together without a large design wall on which to view it. So nicely done! Indeed, it will be a large quilt to domestic machine quilt, but it’s doable. Just remind yourself not to think of the whole quilt, but focus only on the line you’re quilting.
Hi! Linda I know just what you mean about putting together a blog post (it still takes me some time to complete one!), pressing the ‘publish’ button and then wondering ‘who, if anyone, is going to read it?’ Thankfully comments, replies and steadily growing friendships are the heart-warming rewards of keeping-on. Thanks for your comments about my double Irish chain quilt top – I will remember your advice to focus on the each line as I quilt and not think about the whole quilt!
Thanks for the shout out Allison! Your double Irish Chain quilt is amazing:) Thank you for visiting and commenting on my blog!
You are welcome Vicki 🙂 And thank you for your kind comments.