CHALLENGE WEEKEND

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’ve all had an enjoyable weekend. Here in the UK we are enjoying a bank holiday weekend. Tomorrow is the holiday. I’m hoping the sun shines as brightly tomorrow as it has today.

While the sun was shining brightly this morning I decided to do a couple of little jobs outside. I bought a few sacks of pea gravel that I wanted to spread around my gravel garden. It’s a job I dreaded but knew wouldn’t take more than a few minutes. The gravel garden looks fab again. Those few minutes spent tidying in the gravel garden has spurred me on to purchasing my annual plants this coming week. We’ve had a couple of mornings where we had frost last week. I’m hoping that the possibility of frost has past now so I can pretty up my garden.

I have a wee bit of sewing progress to show you today. I make quite a lot of lists in order to keep my life straight. So, I’ve always got a notebook/diary type thing which I consider my bible. As I have four weeks left in the current notebook I decided to set up the next one. So, I started the process by making a cover for said book …..

As you can see I kept it simple and straight forward. I used a few bits of brightly patterned/coloured fabric which I cut into strips and joined together and did some easy quilting. I kept it simple because that way I know I can cope with starting and finishing in one session.

Last weekend I started a project that I have been putting off for a few weeks. I always struggle choosing colours and prints for my projects. And as I was determined to use only what was in my stash I struggled even more. I finally settled on these fabrics which I will turn into a Bargello style quilt. It looks nothing at the moment but I think when it’s done it will look reasonably good. I was hoping to make progress on this project this weekend but something came up and I set the project aside until next weekend.

I got a message from my creative friend on Friday evening asking me if I could produce a quilt quickly for a poorly person who suffered a stroke a few days ago. Well I have been asked to step up to the plate a few times to produce quilts to give poorly people comfort in a time of need. I must admit that I wasn’t sure if I could do it. I got a brief which included using red and grey fabric and fleece backing. I wasn’t even sure that I would have enough of those colours to piece an entire quilt top. Well guess what???? I found sufficient of those colours to be able to piece a generous single size quilt including borders. The only thing missing was the fleece for backing. However, I knew exactly where to get that easily enough. I pulled the fabric and made a plan of action on Friday evening. And after stepping out to purchase red fleece I starting sewing the strips that I started cutting at 5am Saturday morning. By 5pm Saturday evening I had pieced the quilt top and loaded it into my longarm for quilting this morning. As I sit here this evening, Sunday evening, I have quilted and bound said quilt and it’s ready to handover on Wednesday. Here are a few photos of the quilt in question.

Although I wasn’t sure I could meet the challenge when I received the message on Friday evening, I felt it was important to get the job done. Someone needed the comfort a quilt brings. Once I determined I had enough fabric in my stash to do it I decided that this project would be a great way to pay forward  the kindness I received over the past year since my divorce proceedings started. I’m so grateful for all the support and encouragement I received that piecing this quilt was a small price and a great way to pay all that kindness forward. One good turn  always deserves another.

So, it’s been a rather busy but very productive weekend for me. I consider that I created something worthwhile. Longarm quilting using fleece as backing fabric is quite new to me. So, having another go gave me more experience and was a good learning curve. I have decided that while I didn’t use wadding in between the layers I did add a piece of calico to stabilise everything. I’m quite pleased with the result but most of all I am relieved that I managed to piece and quilt this project within 48 hours of receiving the request. I think I deserve a large refreshing Gin & Tonic this evening as a celebration of my accomplishment.

So, for this evening, this very happy and super ambitious quilt maker will be doing a little more work on the Patchwork of the Crosses. I hope you all have a super cosy evening doing something worthwhile. Until you read me again,

Happy stitching ♥ ♥