Secret finish

Last Autumn I won a packet of goodies in the "Quiltmaker" "Back-to-School" project on their blog.
I remember taking photos at the time, but I can't find them, sorry. Anyway it included the then latest edition of  "100 blocks", a tea-mug with a design of patchwork blocks and a quilt kit: this lovely pattern:

That's easy: all the pattern details included! Photo from Hoffman Fabrics.

and the 5" squares to make it:

I have used this kit to make a present for my kind neighbour who lent me her "rollator" (see photo on the right) following my hip replacement surgery three months ago. Unless she has been doing some serious home decorating in the last few weeks these colours will match her living room decor. I shall be taking it to her as soon as I've finished writing this post.

So it took me a year to make this quilt?! Well, no: it took me nearly a year to start making it, but it was pieced in two mornings, and then a month later layered, quilted and binding added in one day. (Delay: no suitable backing fabric; I needed time to get to the LQS!) Yesterday evening I finished sewing down the binding by hand with ladder stitch. I'd never used ladder stitch for bindings before, but having recently learnt it when making my needle turn appliqué circles, I tried it here too. It takes longer than hem stitch, but the result is INVISIBLE! Well almost; I certainly can't get it any smaller.

I found some quilting designs for quilting flying geese on Pinterest (you can check them out on my "Quilting" board.) one of which I used here. I quilted with Aurifil 50 wt, colour 2155 - tan. I also used my recently purchased "Supreme Slider" for the first time, and that made a great difference.

quilting close-up

I used some brownish jelly roll strips, left from another project to make the binding. Fortunately there were four predominantly brown ones left; the piece of binding strip left over was only about 12" long. Usually I cut binding fabric 2" wide, but instead of cutting 0.5" off the 2.5" strips I used them as they were. This was much easier as I could set and the needle in the most right position, three eighths of an inch from the right hand edge of the walking foot and sew the binding on with the walking foot COMPLETELY ON the fabric. Binding on in one take!

One more photo; it is after all a table runner!

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Happy sewing

Marly.