So, I’ve finished my quilt at last! It was so close to being finished last Sunday night. I had about 20 cm of hand binding to finish, but needed to reload the needle, and it was just too late in the evening. I finally managed to get the time today.

There are some spectacularly wonky lines on it, which I’ll try and avoid showing you, but despite that I actually really like it. Don’t get me wrong, it really does have issues with wonky quilting, but I know for a fact that I just couldn’t’ve done it any better on the little machine I was using. And more to the point, I really enjoyed making this, which is the point of it all… right?

The colours are very different to the previous one — that was all browns and more natural colours. I’ve used up some of the brown from that one on this too, but mixed it with turquoise, pink and grey. I actually had most of this fabric knocking around the house — except for the dark outer border, which I bought after a rather stressful search at the knitting and stitching show. Who would think it would be THAT hard to buy dark grey fabric with a subtle pattern? Sheesh! You’d think I was looking for the still-glowing feathers of a flaming firebird! (I’ve been reading Russian fairytales recently). Thankfully my shopping buddy spotted it right at the end of the day and solved all my problems.

When I planned this out, it was more evenly tonally spaced, but every time I packed up sections after a session, I packed it differently, so every time I had to lay it all out again from scratch! (I know, I know. Can’t be organised *all* the time.) It was patched together using the 9 patch block umm… plan. So three rows of three and then stitched up from there. I like this as a technique – and there’s a million tutorials on YouTube for it.

This is a rather terrible shot of the back — but you get the general idea. I was doing everything I could do use up what I had. I’m not 100% sure the blue-grey goes with it, but quilts are supposed to be a *bit* mix and match… aren’t they?

This is the ladder stitch I used to hand bind the back. I came across this tutorial, which is so simple, obvious and great. Previously I’d just used whip stitch or ‘tiny stitches’ as some tutorials say, but this is so much better! Seriously, you can hardly see the stitches. I’m not sure what it is, but binding is my favourite thing about the look of quilts. (Not the making of). There’s something about a quilt’s binding that just makes it look extra cosy:

This is both quilts together – I use the pinwheel quilt a lot in the evenings when it’s a bit chilly. Slightly worried that my boyfriend has started calling the new one ‘his’. I did say I’d make him one – not sure this is it though…

Now – the reason I made this quilt in squares is because I bought this at the quilting show earlier this year, with some birthday money from my Mum:

Sorry – terrible photo, the light’s been all over the place today. It’s a fringe maker, and I got mine from the quilting show, but it looks like you can get them on Amazon too. Oh my god – if you’re anything like me and can’t measure things or hate measuring things—or if by the time you’ve cut it it’s nothing like the piece you actually measured, this is AMAZING. It’s got a slit for your rotary cutter every 1/2 inch. Just line up the edges with the edge of your fabric and away you go. I love it. (They’re not paying me to say this, but I wish they would.) It made chopping up the squares for the quilt super-easy. So there you have it. Get one.

Other things learnt while making the quilt:
• Quilting straight lines is harder than quilting wiggly ones. I reckon people quilt wiggles as a get-out-of-jail-free card 😉
• If you’re rubbish at quilting, all-colour quilts make life harder. The pinwheel quilt looks neater in real life, because I quilted in cream, on the cream sides of the pinwheels. This time, there was no colour thread that was ideal as it had to cross both light and dark colours. This means that when your lines are wonky, they’re more noticeable.
• Use ladder stitch for binding.

Now I need to get back to knitting a baby blanket. This has been a real pain. The cotton is really splitty, and… I dunno. It’s just been misbehaving. Trust me.

Also, like a lot of tatters at this time of the year, I’m furiously tatting christmas snowflakes! Panic!

See you soon.