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this week... 
 
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How lovely! Yesterday I received a comment from Carolyn Gavin, the creater of the divine ‘Wild Thyme‘ fabric range, asking if she could feature my Wild Thyme Quilt on her blog! Of course I said yes, and that I would be honoured. Click here to see her blog post. If you missed it, and would like to read about the process of making this quilt, click here.
  phew! it survived! As you can see, it all turned out OK! As I carefully and oh so gently pulled my quilt out of the washing machine, I did breathe a very large sigh. I was happy to see my brightly coloured fabric that seemed not to have shrunk a bit. I quickly checked, and yes, all the pencil marks were gone, and the threads were all intact. Brilliant. I smiled. Thanks goodness. I left it to dry overnight on my clothes horse, and in the morning, took it along to Amitié for our first class of the last term for the year. Trish agreed with me that tied knots would be best for the middle bits, and by the time 12 o’clock came around, it was all done. Isn’t it such a sweet feeling when you look at your finished work and you’re really happy with it, and it’s all done? To see images of the finished front and back of the quilt, and if you missed the journey of this quilt, you can read about the process here. Thanks so much Allison (from Cluck. Cluck. Sew.) for this delightful quilt design and tutorial!  all done Now, onto hand-quilting Sarah’s Triangles Quilt, and machine-appliquéing Gitta’s Chelsea Quilt. Needless to say, my girls are h-a-p-p-y! They’ve been waiting very patiently for me to finish this Wild Thyme Quilt so I could continue with theirs. So, now that makes 10 projects completed this year so far. I’m hoping to finish Sarah’s and Gitta’s too, and perhaps one other, but we’ll see about that. I’ve just finished the last stitch on the binding. I show it to my daughter, Devorah, and she says I should now wash it. Did she say… WASH IT ????? !!!!! Aaaaarrrrggggghhhhhh! Those of you who are avid followers of my blog will know that I never wash my quilts. Not before, not after. I mean, what if it shrinks and looks horrible. What if those gorgeous colours I drooled over when I bought the fabric will fade. What if I wash it in the wrong temperature and then instead of washing out, I set the pencil lines firmly in. So much to worry about! But you know when someone tells you to do something, and there’s something about how they’re telling you – maybe the assured tone of their voice, perhaps their matter-of-fact, unattached, almost blasé manner, or just that what they’re saying to you rings the faintest of little bells of “you know it’s the right thing to do” in a very far back remote corner of your common sense brain, and with the greatest of trepidation, you follow? Well, I did it. After all, it is my daughter telling me. And I trust her. She takes risks with quilting where I play it safe. She’s clue-ier (crickey, how do you spell that word?) than I am in so many things. So, I put the quilt in the machine, ran the water, and closed the lid. And then I ran out of the laundry. I had to. Just in case I might try to pull it out. As if that’d work! So here’s my quilt, spinning, spinning, washing, getting awfully wet. It just looks so sad in there like that. Oh man, I hope I did the right thing. Please tell me I did.  only minutes away from the spin cycle and then I can pull it out, hopefully in one piece! The “snails” are all done, the quilting finished, and the edges trimmed in readiness for the binding.  (not so suddenly) I'm up to the binding! I decided to do a double-fold binding for this quilt. First time. I cut my fabric into 31/2″ strips, and machine-stitched them onto the quilt.  don't you love the fabric?  No pins, just sewing. Should be OK. I’ll now turn and finish by hand. Can’t wait to show you the finished quilt. A little random? Yeah, it’s the sunshine, and the day after the Grand Final, and it’s just one of those lazy “stream of conciousness” kinda days. Did I tell you I bought a bread maker a few weeks ago? Well I think it’s time I bought some flour and things and baked my first loaf. Friends coming for dinner tomorrow night, so perfect opportunity. There’s a little shop near me in McKinnon that I’ll pop into on Monday. Might ask their advice, because even though I have a really great “Operating Instructions and Recipes” booklet that came with the machine, it’s a little daunting. Might see if they have a class I can attend first. Or do you think that’s silly? Should I just plunge into the deep end? Go for it? Trust it’ll all turn out? Hah. Get it? “Turn out”? Sorry. Stream of conciousness again. My nieces were over yesterday, and I was reminded about a promise I’d made to sew a special make-up purse as her eighteenth birthday present. Shocking, because I’d totally forgotten I’d said that. It’s now in my project list, which is a good start. I need to find some “vintage” fabric for her, matching lining (Liberty perhaps?), and a zipper. Then, I’m going to look in my trinkets box to find some fabulous rustic bits to sew on. Keys, locks, hearts, things like that. Embellishments. Sounds like a fun project. Next, my Wild Thyme quilt is nearly done. Only 6 more “snails” to quilt, then choosing buttons for in between the circles. My friend Leslie told me about a great new shop I must go visit. It’s called “Buttonmania“. Sounds irresistible, right? I’m going to call first, hoping the owner can help me with what I’m looking for. I’d really love to find some of those soft fabric buttons they used to use on mattresses? The old kind, not raised hard buttons, but soft, ones you can almost fold in half. Do you know what I mean? I’ll call her. So on the plan for today is practising my piano for a few hours, finishing my snails, and walking in the beautiful sunshine with my darling. Nice, huh. What are you doing today? |
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