Busy with RSC Projects

 I finished the Roman Stripes Coin Quilt. What a performance that was - I made so many mistakes putting it together. I had cut the backing and batting to the right size - or so I thought! Gaily trimmed the edges and started to machine the binding onto the quilt. When I got to the third side I realised the binding would nowhere near cover the binding and batting on quite a long stretch on that side, so I had to undo all the binding and trim the wonky border and its opposite side which meant those two side were reduced by 1”.

Then I sewed the binding all round the quilt and hand stitched the back. It means the quilt is 40” wide and 38” long but I don’t think it’s obvious. I’ve put it in the Project Linus pile anyway.  It’s nice and colourful and has a lovely Rose and Hubble white spots on a pretty blue background for the backing.

Since I have not been well I am finding sandwiching my quilts very difficult. I used to lay them on the floor in my sewing room and scrabble about on my hands and knees doing the job which always took ages and many times I found wrinkles I had to deal with. One of the Patchwork Groups I belonged to didn’t reopen after Covid lockdowns and that was useful for the sandwiching quilts job. We used to meet in a Village Hall and had big tables to lay out the quilts. Other members would help with the job. I don’t have a table large enough at home to lay out the quilt tops to sandwich. I’ve decided not to make quilts larger than baby sized ones. A couple of Patchwork friends sandwich theirs by hanging them over the bannisters. I’ve tried this method but can’t get it to work. During the week I had an idea - why not do the job on my ironing board? I started at the top of last week’s pink flimsy, gradually flattening and pinning as I worked my way down the quilt. It worked really well and I’m going to try that method again in a minute as I have a colourful playmat to sandwich.

I machine quilted the pink quilt using a new method (for me) on the rabbit centre of the Medallion Quilt. I looked up how to cross hatch on YouTube and found an excellent video which was easy to follow. I am pleased with the result.

  

I am now hand quilting round each star in the border, using a pink variegated Perle thread. It’s looking good.

I have said several times that I am going to take some Project Linus quilts to the new coordinator but something has cropped up, I’ve been poorly, another appointment has occurred, etc so they are still in the cupboard. There is always a reason these things happen because a couple of days ago I had a watsap message from our relative Helen, who asked if I had a finished quilt that she could gift to a friend’s baby boy for his First birthday which he could use as a playmat. I think I have a couple in that Project Linus pile but I’ve also put together a colourful top using novelty fabrics, cutting them at 6.5”. I love it!

A quick photo of some of the blocks:

Off to cut batting for the playmat and see if my new ironing board method of sandwiching a quilt works again!🤞