Monday 23 January 2012

Civil War Quilt

You may be aware that 2011 was the 150th Anniversary of the start of the American Civil War.


In my Tuesday class we have been making a Civil War Quilt. We have been making blocks from Barbara Brackman's Civil War Blog Each week I have taken 2 blocks and written instructions on how to make them. By February 7th we will have made 38 of the 53 on the blog. I have decided to use 36 of the blocks for my quilt. Each block will finish at 8 inches square.

The fabric is Portobello Market by 3 Sisters for Moda

 This is the layout I have chosen - although it may change
 My design wall is a piece of thick cheap wadding from Dunelm Mill which has been tacked to the wall. Gizmo likes to have a snooze whilst contemplating the layout of the blocks!




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Here are 4 New England blocks made by some of my students a few weeks ago. I took the photo to illustrate how different a block can look depending on the fabric choices.


I am now at the stage of sashings. On Saturday I cut 84 sashing strips out of the fabric I had left, to make scrappy sashings. On Sunday I decided I didn't like it so I cut out some more strips out of a red fabric I had bought for the borders. I stitched this with green cornerstones. This morning I have decided that I don't like the cornerstones, I think the sashing will look better without them! More reverse sewing today! I always change my mind a few times as I am making a quilt!


Saturday 14 January 2012

Wonky Trees

As you may already know I love liberated quilting and improvised piecing in particular.
In November I started a new patchwork and quilting class and decided to do some improvised piecing for the first few weeks just to get everyone loosened up.
A couple of weeks before Christmas we did wonky trees and these little beauties are what they produced!
















I've got some really talented ladies in this class!
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Saturday 7 January 2012

Christmas!!

I wanted to share the handmade gifts I made for Christmas - but had to wait until after the big day of course, in case they were spotted on my blog.
This year I made blackwork cushions and gift tags.















These were made for friends and my great neices, Freya and Elsie.
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