A first and a finish!

Even with the diversion of a trip to the Festival of Quilts yesterday I have managed to finish my quilt from the Siblings Together Quilt Bee , and not before time as the summer camp at which these quilts will be distributed is coming up in a couple of weeks time!

Manhandling this quilt through my machine for the straight-line quilting was certainly a test of my upper arm strength, I could feel aches in places that I have never felt aches in before :)

My recent trip to the local fabric sale resulted in this great numbers fabric for the quilt back.

This was my first visit to a Doughty's Roadshow but at £7 per metre, it definitely won't be my last! The shows take place all over the UK, check out here to see if there is one happening near you. Be prepared to queue, but trust me it is worth it at these prices :)

I had made a test block when I drafted the instructions for my Bee mates, so used that with the numbers fabric for the quilt back.

 

You can just see the first of the title in the top left hand corner of the quilt back.

My first ever quilt label!

As all of my previous quilts have been made for family members I have never added a quilt label to the back before. The label above was donated by Spoonflower for the Siblings Together Quilts, so one email to Catherine and I had a label for my quilt.

I hope that the eventual recipient of this quilt gets as much pleasure out of using it as I did from making it.

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts

Locked

One of the highlights of our recent river cruise from Moscow to St Petersburg, was negotiating the 17 locks required to complete the journey.

Given that this was the size of our ship getting through the locks was no cinch!

Add in the fact that we negotiated several of them during the night, the ship's captain certainly earned his keep.

Not too much room for manoeuver here :)

 

or here!

The locks were too deep for ships to be tied up to the top when the water levels were changing, so they were tied to these sidewinders, which rolled up or down depending upon the water levels.

The locks we passed through were constructed between 1939 and 1964, by the use of forced labour, so the human cost of these grand structures was high.

Landscapes like these did not lend themselves to an easy escape.

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To market, to market ...

We are heading off to visit friends next week, so naturally I decided at the last minute that a quilt would be the ideal present to bring with us!

Here's the progress so far

The pattern is called Floating in the Air and is from the Aug/Sept 2013 issue of Quilt magazine. The pattern calls for 63 charm squares for the block centres, but I have reduced it to 49 as the full size quilt would take up all of the baggage allowance :)

I am using up the text charm squares that I received in the Texty Charm Swap, which I discovered when looking for the link that I received two years ago!

No progress will be made on the piecing for the next two days though as I won this in a giveaway run by Bernina a couple of weeks ago.

I have never visited the Festival of Quilts before, so I am really looking forward to it.

Fortunately, the show coincides with the first day of the next Test match in the Ashes cricket series, so whilst I am browsing the eye candy at the Quilt show my other half will be soaking up the sun at Trent Bridge. Win-win all round :)

Linking up to WIP Wednesday