Thursday 28 April 2011

Now Broadcasting From A New Location

Hello quilting friends! My cross-Atlantic move is done (my part, anyway, all my fabrics, sewing machine etc. just left Canada... what a long wait that'll be!).

After a bit of a stay at my mom's place, I've now moved into my own apartment in the country side. In 3 days, I start my new job at a publishing house 4 km from here, it's a beautiful bicycle commute through green fields and forests in the distance.

Since I have nothing new to show in recent quilting, I present you instead with what might well be my actual first quilt, if you can call it a quilt (it's missing a crucial quilt feature, namely, the quilting!).

I must have made this blanket at a time when I had heard about the art of patchwork.


My mom had bought a sample patch from an upholstery store (you know all the different swatches). I basically laid those out and sewed them together, put an old towel underneath as 'batting' and used some other denim-like, black material as backing and fold-over border/binding. The thread guaranteed was polyester, and I have no clue what fibres are in the swatches... some cotton, but the rest?

Points are not too bad, though, eh??? I have no idea what type of seam allowance I used. Certainly not 1/4"!

Now, if you've ever sat there and scratched your head about how to do binding and borders, do not despair. Just do something, it'll work, as this blanket proves:


The corners are certainly mitered, but I have absolutely NO clue how I did that... let's call it 'unique', shall we?
Here's the back, and you can see: it's not quilted. I guess I didn't know that part about quilting.

If I'm bored one afternoon at my mom's place, I might tie it. I've never tried that before. You just take wool and poke the needle through and right back up again, then tie the ends, right? Might make it a bit more usable. I'd use grey wool, I think, to make it blend in...

Well, unless I find another old project (I have some photos of recently (i.e. March) finished tops floating around somewhere...) to report on, that's it until my stuff arives (3 weeks or more?). I've heard horror stories of container goods being delayed for months because of customs, but worse, someone mentioned yesterday that "containers often have problems with vermin and bugs... perfect conditions in there!" - except, what do they eat??? My fabrics are all well packed, so I'd say nothing can get in there, but I won't say that because of Murphy's law - my one superstition :)

You guys quilt some quilts in my stead, okay?

3 comments:

Crispy said...

I was thinking of you yesterday morning and here you are posting!! I'm happy that you are all settled in and I hope that your things get to you without a hitch.

Now for the quilt...ummmm, welll it IS very nice that your mom has kept it for you. I think tying it would be a great idea. I'm pretty darn sure that my first attempts at quilting did not have matching anything LOL.

Crispy

Anne at Film and Thread said...

Well, if you have no new quilt pictures to show, how about a little tour of where you are living so that we can see what it's like?

So glad you made it safe and sound and that you are ok. We have just gone through massive, numerous tornadoes that caused all kinds of destruction near us and knocked out our power for the last 5 days. We finally gave up and are at a campground in another state.

klofgren62 said...

Left PEI!! What a surprise. Please fill us in on your new home and keep posting!