Do you like it? It’s one of the designs in Kaffe Fassett’s book, “Quilts In The Sun“. You can click on each image to enlarge it, and click here to read the whole megillah, the making of…
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this week... 
 
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 Gita's Chelsea Quilt That’s right! It’s Gita’s quilt! YAY!! Did this last week. I’m so glad I left the tables set up after Pesach, so handy for things like this! The quilt is all pinned, trimmed, and ready for hand-quilting. Just need to sort out my Perle 8 colours, and decide on how I’m going to do this. It’s exciting for me to have just finished one daughter’s quilt, and have the second daughter’s quilt almost done too. Mind you, the hand quilting won’t get done overnight, but still, it’ll be finished “soon”. I looked through my 2010 project list yesterday, and thought I’d cull a few that just weren’t going to get done by the time 2010 went and 2011 arrived. A quilt, a couple of tablecloths, the ice cream social dress, and a new ironing board cover just weren’t going to make it. So, delete. I am, however, left with a challenge tht makes me happy. Just how much can I get done before the end of this year? Here’s what I have in mind. I reckon I can get the following done. It’ll take some planning, but I’m going for it! First, I want to finish Sarah’s Triangles Quilt. That’d be just silly if I didn’t get that one finished. I only need to quilt the border, albeit a queen-sized 8″ border, sew the binding on, and then pull all that basting stitch out, but I reckon I can do it.
Gita’s Chelsea quilt? Well, now that the top’s done, I need to sandwich it and quilt it, then put on the binding. I can’t quite see that getting done in time, but you never know, right? I will be quilting by hand, going around all the flower boxes with a nice turquoise/aqua, and then straight-stitching the rest of it. What do you think? It’s not that big. I might take that one on too.
Then there’s only my tablecloths. I have two unfinished cloths. I don’t think I will try to finish those before New Year’s, but then again, it’s machine sewing, and won’t take that long really. I’ll keep this one in reserve, and see how I go, but I doubt it. I only have two weeks for all this, and I’d rather get the quilts done. I have already made up enough of my Liberty Stars blocks for the next two weeks’ posts, so I don’t have to worry about them.
So here I go! Wonder if I’ll get it all done! I truly thought I’d blown it when I cut into the beautiful linen Gita had picked for her quilt border. All I’d remembered – because it was such a long time ago – was that we’d both decided the border should be BIG. The couple inches of red fabric for a smaller border between the appliquéd section and that final border, was an afterthought. A good one, but one I hadn’t measured for. Now, that makes it sound like I’d actually done some calculating to make sure I had enough of that linen to actually accommodate the 10½” border I’d cut, doesn’t it. Well, no, I didn’t, but this is where it all got interesting. I just love how errors transform into the best ideas. I’d already sewn two of the 10½” strips I’d cut onto the sides of the quilt.  sides looking good, but what about the top and bottom? I then took the remaining two strips, and my heart sank. I had intended to cut the top and bottom bits with the pattern going in the same direction as the sides, but what had I done? Well not that! AND, the bits I did have, albeit with patterns going sideways, were TOO SHORT! Each piece was about 18″ too short to go the whole width of the (now larger) quilt. NOW what was I going to do! I knew already that this material was nowhere to be found. It had long been sold out, finished. And then it hit me. What if I added squares of contrast fabric in the corners?!?!?!? THAT could work. So I looked through all the fabric I had left over from the centre panel, and again, that sinking feeling hit. I didn’t have enough of ANY of those either. Well… there was only one thing to do, right? Take a trip to Amitié. Brilliant. Right after lunch, we headed down to Centre Road, and I found the perfect fabric. I looked as if it was part of the same range as our border! Same green. Same shade of linen. Perfect. What do you think?
 it now measures 60" x 66" - a good size, yes? I love how this quilt is turning out. I need to buy some batting, probably wool, and begin quilting. Thinking of doing red stitching around the flowers and flower pots, and then doing 1″ rows of straight stitching in a neutral colour. I can sense light in the bedroom. I can’t quite manage to open my eyes, but I can just feel the morning hour. One eye will do, I squint as I reach across to press the light button on my bedside little clock that must have a magic battery inside because I haven’t changed it in a decade at least. 5:30. Not good. However, since I’d first woken at 4:27, this was an upstat. I navigated my pile of discarded pillows next to my bed to get to my slippers, then out the bedroom door, and down the corridor to my workroom. Hmm, what to do. Way too early for the piano. Don’t want to wake up Val next door. Can’t quite bring myself to haul Sarah’s Triangles Quilt from the front room to here, it’s just so BIG! So, there it stays, over the top of the couch till tonight’s Jeopardy episode. So, what to do. Thinking, thinking, and then I have it. It’s the perfect time. I pulled Gita’s Chelsea Quilt out of its drawer, and began machine-appliquéing. Here’s how it looks so far.  raw edge appliqué again Well that was yesterday morning. This morning, I woke up at the slightly more decent hour of 6:30am. Again, headed down the corridor to my workroom, and began sewing. It’s looking really gorgeous! Just need to find some of that lovely red Kaffe solid fabric so I can sew on at least the right side border, and then appliqué down the flower and leaf that are right on the edge.  btw, it's deliberate, having the flower and leaf "grow" over the edge I’ll be hand-?quilting this one, and will probably do a little running stitch in red Perle 8 around the flower boxes and flowers. I think it’ll look gorgeous. Gita doesn’t know I’m working on it again, so don’t tell her, OK? I want to surprise her. |
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