It's that time of year again...

...when Amy very kindly arranges the Bloggers Quilt Festival. For many of us (myself included) who are miles from anything quilt related, the BQF is a fantastic chance to see what other quilters around the world have been up to.

The quilt I am showing I just finished this morning.

 It's my interpretation of a quilt from the Kaffe Fasset book Simple Shapes Spectacular Quilts. (A little aside: I automatically used to think of Amazon for books but this is a link to who I now use: The Book Depository which offers free worldwide postage and has a rather addictive world map which shows in real time who is buying what around the world).

As with all my quilts, they are made from my stash, nothing is ever bought specifically for a quilt and 90% of the fabric comes from the sale sections of websites. So...in my stash I found some big blowsey Kaffe Fasset flowers, some Amy Butler, Phillip Jacobs and some other bits and bobs I'd completely forgotten I had. The caramel coloured solid is a shot cotton I've had for yonks and I can't remember what it was.

 It sat for ages on my 'design wall' - aka the £10 office divider panel while I had a mini-obsession with Tufted Tweets (see previous posts for outcomes of obsession) and I didn't do much with it.

Yes, I know, not the most inspiring of photos.

I then added a couple of random borders and finally got around to finishing it this week.

I straight-line quilted it with a walking foot. I don't mark the quilt, I eye-ball it so I'm not claiming it's complete 'straight'-line quilting but that's absolutely fine for me. I'm not here to make prize-winning entries, just to have fun. Once I had eye-balled the first line I then did a line either side, both of which lined up with the edge of the walking foot. I also have a play around on a piece of scrap quilt sandwich to make sure my quilt tension and stitch length are OK. For straight-line quilting I find a stitch length of 3.20 works best on my machine - Bernina 440QE

The backing is a Phillip Jacobs I had to hand, spliced with a Kona solid. I put my quilts together with a spray baste. For years I used pins but I'm definitely a spray baster. Not only does it save time but if there is the beginnings of a pucker when I am quilting, I can just lift the offending layer up and smooth down. I also have my iron on and sometimes iron a specific area of the quilt just as I am about to start quilting it. The only 'negative' thing I can say about spray basting is that after quilting for a while, your needle seems to pick up some of the glue residue and you get a little sticky bob bobbing up and down the needle. Not the worst thing in the world to happen and I just unthread and ping the glob off.

Thank you again to Amy for hosting this - I can imagine there's a whole lot of work involved. I'm off now to see what the rest of you have been up to.

It's finished...

and I rather like it!

 

I realised that if I used one of these...

 ...I could use Perle 8 thread in a quilting needle and get the small stitches I was after. So I did and by and large, it worked. I quilted around the outline of each triangle with the Perle 8 in a lime green and a deep purple.

 

I decided not to add every last scrap of Tufted Tweets on the back and instead went for this:

 

 I free-motion quilted in each triangle with mono-filament thread in the top and a lime green cotton in the bobbin. I love the effect it creates on the back.

Binding is Michael Miller's Flora and Fauna Hive in Lime.