Another quilt top completed

I couldn't resist taking one of my 'up close and personal' shots of this quilt - I love the colours in these fabrics!

This is the finished quilt top. I still haven't decided on the binding.



















It's 24" square so it's not that 'mini' for a mini quilt and I've changed my mind about putting it in the kitchen. It's now going in my room (I call it my atelier just to see the teenagers roll their eyes!) which means I'll probably make something else, something smaller, for the kitchen.

It's been really interesting taking this up again after a three year break. Quilting hadn't even crossed my mind in all that time so I'd forgotten quite a lot. When I put together the bed quilt a few weeks ago, I was reminded of how physical this activity is! I was re-arranging blocks, adjusting the balance of colours and I think I must be getting old - all that bending and kneeling on hard wooden floors hurts now! I made the stupid mistake with these blocks of only trimming them approximately which meant I gave myself four sides each of 64 blocks to cut all over again yesterday - the week after I got a recurrence of tendinitis in my wrist! Fortunately, one thing that did come back to me is how much time is saved by working in batches, conveyor belt style. After the first day sewing, I calculated it would take me about 4 weeks at that speed. I noticed how much thread I was wasting and that reminded me of the technique. So doing the blocks in batches saved me a considerable amount of time -and thread.

This little log cabin quilt has been paper pieced. It's one of my favourite techniques and I actually used to teach it in Kuwait but it still took a while to come back to me. It's a bit like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time, I'd forgotten how much concentration it needs!

I haven't, though, forgotten how tedious, messy and time consuming it is to remove the papers - this is the back!
















Still, Wimbledon starts today, this will give me something useful to do while I'm watching it. And no, I'm not going to say a word about Andy Murrey after I jinxed Jenson Button in my last post!