The Big Finish

I want to start this post by expressing my deepest admiration for people who make bed-size quilts on a regular basis. People, you're heroes! So far, I've only made four large quilts, and every one has been an Endeavour. This is the latest one, the finally finished one block wonder:

If you're interested in the process, here's the full journey:
post 1
post 2
post 3

Because the quilt is destined for my daughter's bed, I decided to pull out the bright colours for the border, rather than the grey, and you may say the border is too bright for the middle - I won't argue. The magenta fabric, by the way, comes from the fabric dyeing workshop held last summer at the IPS Eastern Branch. It's the so-called low immersion dyeing and I think its irregular colour works well with the quilt.

I had a difficult time choosing the quilting pattern, considering that I do the quilting on my domestic Janome. I ended with a  rather simple allover flower pattern, which is almost invisible on the busy middle and comes out on the border.

I have written before that the fabric used in the quilt is satin, and it didn't behave well in piecing. The same was true in quilting, I had a hard time making it lie flat, and there are some glitches in the back, but it has a nice shimmering texture, especially with this kind of quilting.

The quilt also turned out difficult to photograph, because the satin surface is highly reflective, so I'll try to take some better photos (some day).

At the moment I'm happy to have the Big Summer Project off my shoulders, which means I can start something new!

Linking up to Off the Wall Friday at Creations by Nina-Marie
Finished or Not Friday at Busy Hands Quilts
Can I get A Whoop Whoop? at Confessions of a Fabric Addict
TGIFF at A Quarter Inch from the Edge

Progress Report

A progress report on my One Block Wonder quilt (see previous instalments here and here).

After finalising the layout I stitched together the vertical column of half-hexagons:

And then put the columns together, see how the look changed after the seam allowances went to the back:

The fabric is satin and quite naughty, so I didn't really bother matching all the seams to a point, in many cases they are a bit off.
But the satin finish has a plus side, too: it creates a nice shine and facet-like look to the quilt. I will be still visible after quilting.

Here it is on the bed. It cover most of the bed surface, so I need a border for the overhang, and, unfortunately, I don't have enough suitable fabric (and also not enough backing and not enough batting - I have made any bed-size quilts in a while), so I need a fabric shopping trip.

Linking up to Let's Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts

One Block Wonder Takes Shape

It's been a long time since I did any quilting and, consequently, blogging, but now I have a little break in my studies and want to finish some UFOs.
The first thing I started with is the one block wonder quilt started as demonstration pieces for my workshop. I finished the second batch of the blocks and spent a couple of hours yesterday playing with the layout.

It's going to be a bedquilt for my daughter's bedroom, so I knew I wanted the purples, the focus colour, to go in some sort of diagonal from the corner which is going to be closest to the door. The photo above was the first preliminary layout, and then I shuffled and reshuffled the blocks for ages. I wonder if anyone can spot the changes ;)))

If by any chance you have nothing better to do, you can play the game "spot N differences between two identical pictures".
I think I should better get sewing, otherwise I will want to rearrange them again - I can see a couple of "odd men out" in the last photo that I didn't see yesterday.

Linking up to Let's Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts

Tips Taken Away from my One Block Wonder Workshop

This past Saturday I taught a workshop on the One Block Wonder Technique at the Eastern branch of the Irish Patchwork Society. It was a busy but satisfying day and I think the participants enjoyed it. I don't have a lot of photos from the day, but I thought I'd share those which have resulting blocks in them (pity I don't have everybody's), as well as the tips we were able to take away from the day.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished quilts, though finalizing the layouts may take quite some time.

This is a picture I wanted to print out, but didn't manage to get to the printers'. It sums up what we did on the day very well (both the picture and the phrase were found on the Web).

I will not run through the whole process of making a One Block Wonder quilt (there are a lot of tutorials around on the Web), but I do want to share some tips which proved handy and/or were learned the hard way.