Better (sort of) pictures of Willows quilt

So here she is, Willows quilt

She's longer than the place I had to hang it so its not the best picture but you get the idea

 

Up close of the hand quilting that almost sent me over the edge.

I hope she likes it, she is going through a "colour is evil" stage right now and her bedroom is pure white but I started this ages ago so nothing I can do to change it!

 

Willows

 So I finished quilting and I hope never to be that crazy again!

 

It does look good with the quilting - thank god! its given it a nice texture and there is no way I would have the patience to do this on my machine

I squared it up today and once again I will say having lines in the actual quilt makes the whole thing so much easier.

I just have to figure out the binding and then I can tick another quilt off the list, Horray!!!

I also made these cute little care instructions to go in with Caroline's quilt - she's the type who would want to know and not just guess

Working on Willows WIP

I started this one maybe a year and bit ago - this is the quilt I got the HST for Carolines quilt from.
Its obviously HST and I backed it with fleece (a first for me). I also wrote her name with fabric blocks (that I actually brought the pattern for)

It was meant to be for my niece last Christmas (or even maybe the one before).
I got super far with it but I chose for some god forsaken reason to hand quilt it - if I'm remembering righty is was because it is super bulky and I had trouble getting though my machine.

I'm on the finial corner of quilting and its about damn time!

 

Boring task alert

Unpicking the my awful Christmas Tree quilt...

I have no clue what I'm going to do with these bits but I know I was never going to use it whilst it was a whole quilt, you never know these random bits might come in useful

Yea baby!

 I'm on fire! Not only is the back of the quilt assembled the whole thing is finished!!

Here's my Swarm.

I really like this quilt, the points where super annoying to line up but I think it looks really good.

I choose to do different white prints rather than just one print or solid fabric, in person it adds a nice detail without making the quilt too busy looking - something I'm definitely going to keep in mind for future quilts

Next was basting the whole thing togethers, not my favourite step. I don't have space in my room so I need to do it at the dining room table and I have to wait for my family to be out so they don't get in the way - which took a couple of days!

I used both spray and pins to baste it together which is lucky because I didn't have enough pins to secure it properly - they are being used in a different project.

I choose to do simple diagonal line quilting because its quick and I really didn't want to slow myself down by making it over complicated - not that I can do complicated quilting, I really don't have the patients for it.

Squaring it all up was really easy because it already had built in lines I could use as guides so I managed to square it up and sew on the binding all in one afternoon - like I said I am on FIRE!

Its currently 9pm and chucking it down raining so there's no chance I can get a decent picture, hopefully it stops raining and I can get one tomorrow.

The thing I love most about this quilt?..... it cost nothing. Everything I used I already had.

The HST where left over from another quilt (which is the next thing I want to finish), the back was a quilt top I had to finish putting together, I frankensteined the batting out of bits I had left over from other projects, the binding was fabric from my stash... I spend zero pounds on this whole thing. 

Edit: Finished!

Caroline's Quilt

 Progress is good!

I redrew my plans to accommodate it being a smaller quilt and it actually wasn't a pain to figure out

I've got all of my rows sewen together s next it sewing them together and then I will have a back!
I love it when a plan works!

Now I don't know if you have noticed, but it's not a christmasy quilt anymore. 
When I was asking people opinions on the Christmas Quilt That Went Wrong they pointed out that if it was too Christmasy maybe she wouldn't use it year round - This was pointed out because they where trying me make me feel better about it not screaming Christmas but it made me rethink the whole plan.

When I was making the HST quilt I did consider using Christmas fabric in place of the solid colour fabric, but I laid out a section and auditioned the fabric in place I decided that I preferred the colours rather than the Christmas ones

So now its just going to be given as a Christmas Gift instead of it being a Christmas Quilt

Take 2 Caroline's Quilt

 ...Trusty Half Square Triangles.

The best bit is I already had a bunch of White and Solid colour fabric cut into squares (from a different quilt that I haven't finished, don't judge)
Picking the size for a quilt is one of my down falls, I always pick a big size and then double think it half way through - another reason I didn't like the Christmas Tree quilt!
But the amount of fabric I had already cut made the decision on the size - it was like fate!
I didn't have quiet enough white fabric so I threw in some solid colour squares and that came together super quick 

In fact its done!!

Its 60 X 60 which is apparently throw size, I'm not sure if it would suit a boarder, my plan was to scavenge the boarder off of the Christmas Tree quilt and use it on on this one - I think it would make squaring it up a little easier but I'm not sold on the idea yet

Next is the backing and considering I already spent money on the Christmas Tree Quilt I really don't want to spend any more. My problem is I only really buy fat quarters or at the most half meters of fabric so I don't have enough of anything in my stash. I did consider using the Christmas Tree one as a backing but I realllyyyy don't like it but at some random hour of the night I remembered a WIP that might work

Who remembers me talking about Swarm....?

Swarm By Selina Cheng

This is the quilt instructions I came in search for but found none... just a drawing of the top. 

As you can see I left myself really detailed notes to make it easy on myself if/when I picked it up again

I had already pieced a bunch of this quilt but staying true to fashion I stopped before if was finished - which I guess is sort of lucky because it's now going to be the back of Carolines quilt

I "just" have to sew the rows together and it will be complete.
I'm taking out 4 rows because I had originally planned for it to be 75X85 which is too big for what I need. Lets see how long this one takes me and if I finish it

Caroline's Christmas Quilt

This one didn't go to plan at all. 

 My friend Caroline love Christmas but she's a had it hard for the last year or so and I thought I would show my love for her by making her a quilt.... a quick quilt because its already October and I don't have a lot of free time to sew. 

Enter this lovely quilt... 

Holiday Hills Quilt Pattern

I'm still poor so I drew something similar up myself and got to work using my stash of fabric (although I did have to buy the backing white colour) 

I got so far as squaring it up and then decided I hated it. 

I picked totally the wrong fabrics - I should have gone with green for the tree, or maybe more Christmas colours but I didn't because I'm stupid. Plus I added sashing and it adds nothing but empty space and it doesn't look great 

No way am I giving something that I think is rubbish so I went back to the drawing board for an even quicker quilt and landed on... 

So to no ones surprise....

 ...I'm still a rubbish blogger. I have no idea if blogging is still a thing!

I pulled out an old WIP to scavenge as a backing but I hadn't written any clues on where I was in the process or how to bloody thing was meant to go together so I came here in hopes of clarity but its been so long this quilt isn't even on here!

To my shame I haven't completed a quilt since Jos' and Nans' - I have started a few but as we know starting and finishing a quilt are 2 different hobbies.

Let me start with the one I'm currently working on and see if I can work backwards...