"It takes ages to finish a quilt you're not working on!"

Friday, March 29, 2019

Another month gone by!

My Dad used to say the older you get, the faster time goes.  At 70 years old, I now know what he was talking about!  I look at all the fabric in my stash, not to mention embroidery and other craft stash, and realise I will never get through it all in this life time.  Ah well, all I can say it is nice to have a choice when I'm looking for something to do.
Our UFO challenge on the Home Makers Forum is enormously successful for those of us who are participating.  Some of the members are knitting, while others are finishing off old cross stitch and embroidery projects, one lady is working on a rug, others on their overflowing mending baskets! and several of us are finishing quilt UFOs.  Here is my cross stitch project that I started a few years ago, finally finished and bordered with a matching fabric.  All I have to do now is decide what I'm going to do with it - put it in a small frame, make a small decorative cushion, maybe use it for the front of a journal cover?  Time will tell.

My March project was a coincidence.  I had picked it up in late February thinking I might play with it regardless of when its number came up on the Challenge, and lo and behold, it was the number selected by our co-ordinator for this month!    I have been collecting men's ties from opshops for years with the intention of making a Bow Tie quilt, and I'd got as far as sorting the ties out (washing, separating the front from the lining, and ironing interfacing on to them), and making two blocks.  I had nothing in mind for the finished size of the quilt - my goal was to keep making blocks until I was tired of doing it, then join them together. 
So I've been doing that all month, and finally decided I had enough blocks to make a table topper or throw.   There are many variations of Bow Tie quilts, and I played around with my blocks for a while, but eventually decided on this layout.  I am going to put a narrow black border around it, then a wider border made from the single colour background fabrics (which by the way are curtain fabric swatches - can't bear to waste anything, lol!)

I thoroughly enjoyed making these blocks, and intend to make a bigger quilt one day from cotton patchwork fabric, and co-ordinate the colours properly.