All Tripped Out!

Well our eldest son has been and gone and guess what he took back to London with him?

A finished Scrappy Chevron Quilt!

It was a bit of a rush job at the end but I managed to get this quilt finished in the nick of time. I am thrilled to bits with it, I have never managed to complete a quilt this size (60" x 60") this quickly before. Fortunately, he is pleased with it too. I was a bit worried that there was too much lilac in it for him, but he didn't mention it so I didn't ask :)

There was no time for fancy quilting so I echo-quilted the chevron pattern as you can see above, and better below.

The backing fabric I had was just a bit too narrow so I added some leftover strips to give me the extra width I needed.

I discovered the perfect purple fabric for the binding, and again as time was an issue I machine bound the double-fold binding using a zig-zag stitch. I will call that a design element to echo the chevron quilting :)

I really enjoyed putting this quilt together and I am encouraged to find that it doesn't need to take months (or even years!) to make a quilt, definitely something New to Me!

Speaking of which, if you have tried something new this month there is still time to link up here to

The Link up will stay open until midnight (GMT) June 30th.

This Scrappy Chevron quilt is also my first (and possibly only!) finish for Q2 in

Linking up this finish to

Crazy Mom Quilts

 

 

More tripping

We were in London last weekend to celebrate our eldest son's engagement, so there wasn't much in the way of sewing going on. Instead we mingled with the tourists at Tower Bridge.

Tower Bridge, London

and enjoyed the view of London, Old and New, on our way across the bridge to brunch on the Sunday morning.

So, there has been some frantic sewing going on since the weekend in an attempt to get the Scrappy Chevron quilt top finished in time for our son's visit home next weekend.

Ta da! A finished quilt top. Fortunately after my previous post I found my rhythm with these blocks and there was much less unintentional seam ripping action with the last two rows than there was with the first three :)

Now all I need to do is back, baste, quilt and bind it before Sunday! There won't be much housework done around here in the next few days that is for sure :)

So that's my progress looking forward to seeing yours.


Linking up to WOW













My Quilt Infatuation

Seam ripping and Chevrons

You would think wouldn't you that when making blocks that require a seam ripper for every strip i.e. the Scrappy Trip Around the World blocks from Quiltville, I would try not to have to use the seam ripper on any other part of the block? You would think that, but you would be wrong!

Quiltville's method for putting together Trip Around the World blocks involves sewing strips together in a loop then cutting them to the square size and ripping out a seam in each strip to make graduated strips.

So, for each 6 strip block you have to rip out 6 seams, which means in a 25 square quilt I am ripping out 150 times, more than sufficient for anyone.

Apparently not! The two aqua/black blocks in the bottom rows should be at the other end of the row. Unfortunately, this wasn't the only occasion I did this :(



And you would not believe (well, maybe given the above you would!) the amount of times this is the way these urns were facing when I looked at the finished block.

Perhaps my subconscious enjoys seam ripping more than I realised, or maybe it is because I would really like to have this finished before my son comes home for the weekend in a week's time.

Despite all the seam ripping going on I am more than halfway with this quilt top, which is kind of a minor miracle at this stage.

Two more rows to go, and goodness knows how much seam ripping and I will have a quilt top! I am not following the Trip Around the World pattern exactly as I have gone for a 5 x 5 arrangement I thought it would look a bit odd, so have gone for chevrons instead.

If you haven't already check out the free patterns at Quiltville you should there are loads, all aimed at using up your scraps :)

So here is how my list is looking

• In Color Order HST BOM - quilting started!
• Sunday Morning Quilt Bee blocks received 
• Sunday Morning Quilt2 Bee 10 sets of blocks received
• Sunday Morning Quilt2 Bee blocks sent (on schedule)
• Star of Africa Bee blocks completed and sent (3 months behind schedule)
• Scrappy Trip Around the World Bee -  COMPLETED AND SENT
• And And Sew On BOM - four blocks completed (one behind schedule)
• Crafty Cooks Apron and Recipe Swap  - COMPLETED AND SENT
• Son's quilt - 3 rows sewn, 2 rows to be added
• Paris Cushion - fabric received
• (Almost) Irish Chain quilt basted  
• 5 blocks of NY Beauty QAL completed and fabric cut for remaining 5 blocks 
• 18 blocks of Craftsy BOM completed (only 2 more to go!) 

So that's my progress looking forward to seeing yours.

Linking up to WOW