Gosh can’t believe I’ve missed two Handmade Monday Link-ups this month. I really need to get into the habit of scheduling posts in advance! Family dinners and outings and all of a sudden it’s Tuesday and ‘oops! Missed it!’ I haven’t actually done lots of crafting – I’m so excited to be able to walk properly and drive again I am enjoying going out as much as I can manage. I have however, managed a little bit of patchwork!
I finished both the grandsons’ quilts and they seemed genuinely pleased to have them which was nice after all the hard appliqué work. I then started on the Moses basket quilt for the new baby Using a pattern called ‘Round the World’. It is rather fiddly when sewing up small squares, although there is a much quicker method for making this pattern by sewing strips of colours together then cutting them into squares and arranging them into one quarter of the pattern. Then repeat three times and you have a whole round the world!
To have the best chance of all your points matching in patchwork you have to cut carefully, sew a consistent quarter inch seam allowance and then, press the seams of pieces to be sewn together, in alternating directions, so that you get them fitting together perfectly. This is the theory – ha! It never works for every single join in patterns with lots of them, especially on small squares! (No cheating and zooming in on my pictures!)
Here’s part of the completed round the world bit – I was trying out the effects of adding either one pink floral border or a cream floral border, then a pink floral one.
Trying out border colours
Trying cream and pink borders
DD decided she liked the two borders best which didn’t take very long to cut and sew. Now just the quilting and binding! Hopefully once it’s all complete and being admired at the baby shower I wont respond to every compliment with ‘ oh yes but I’ve made a mess of some of the points here and here, which is just what the Patchwork Course teacher tells us not to do! 😳 Perfect patchwork does needs lots of patience though, and can’t be rushed, which is why I prefer small sized quilts, as I get the to the end result before boredom sets in!
Oh well must get back to patchwork 😉 and, of course, reading some other crafty blogs!
