The quilt top is pieced!
Firstly, thank you so much to all the people who left me a comment on my post about whether to sash the quilt top or not! You really helped me – I had lots of possibilities to weigh up and it was really useful for me to get words of wisdom from experienced quilters. After considerable thought I went with my first instinct – no sashing.
As you can see, I made an additional four blocks, making it a square quilt. I like the way that the white squares form their own pattern; sometimes I look at it and see the coloured blocks as individual units, and other times I focus on the white squares. I still think that it would have looked good sashed in white, so the colours seemed to float – maybe for a future quilt! I reckon that I did an okay job of matching up the points for a beginner. I took it around to Megan’s today and got some suggestions for the border fabrics and widths. I also discovered that since I don’t own a walking foot for my machine, I’ll be quilting this by hand. Hmmmm.
Clare helped me to decide on the placement of the blocks, with lots of suggestions on which fabrics looked best with which based on their depth of colour, how busy the print was, etc. She is only five – I was very impressed! She thinks that I should have replaced the darkest green block with a new one in a different shade of green – she’s probably right, but I wanted to include this block because it’s my first patchwork block. While I was sewing it all up, she did a little hand piecing herself.
She did a more even running stitch than I do!
The quilt looks so beautiful! Clare does have a good eye for colour and placement, I must say.
Don’t hand quilt it – calico will make that hard. Go and buy a walking foot. Ring around to price one, but you should get one anyway – they are great!
Well done for having a go at quilting. I’ve just made 2 churn dash for the 1st time too in an Autumnal Quilt. I like the way the calico makes it’s own pattern if you know what I mean. Some of the Lucy M Boston quilts I saw did that and they are considered very very good. Lovely balance of Summery colours too. Are you in the Summer Stash Challenge?
It looks great Lara, what will you do for the binding?…I am currently obsessed with bindings.
Lara, if u do decide to hand quilt I can recommend a leather thimble with metal tip I got through Patchwork on Central………..it comes from a place in Collingwood ph 9417 0052. My first quilt (Kimono) was all hand pieced and I quilted it using this thimble and it does have calico in it……..u can see it on my blog……..I had no choice as at that stage i did not have a sewing machine.
Sharon
I think Clare must take after her mummy… VERY nice stitching!!
you know after I voted for the sashing, I was looking at how not sashing created a pattern with the white squares and I really like it. alot.
Claire is amazing!
What a little smarty that Claire is and such a talented sewer! VERY GOOD!
It looks really great! I’m glad you didn’t do sashing. 🙂