Basting

Matthew quilt 1, originally uploaded by alisoninlondon.

I really despise basting, and know I'm not alone in my hatred of it. But baby quilts, well they're a dream! It's over quickly, and there's no need to move furniture. Heck, I can even use off cuts of cotton batting from other projects - no joins even...

This quilt was so fun to do. I've shown pictures of it finished to friends, in fact pregnant friends, and they all kind of go - meh. They like it, but they don't *love* it. I do. But I look at each of the fabrics and remember where I bought them from, and it's a trip back into time.

There's bits there from almost every quilt show I've ever attended, and I have attended quite a few. I love the spots, and the stripes and the plains, but the real beauty is in getting to use pieces of my treasured Heather Ross and other novelty prints in the smaller squares where I think they look the best.

And the textures. Well, there's regular cotton, the lovely soft cotton poplin, double gauze, linen, linen/cotton mix, and even some of Prints Charming's charming hand screen prints in there. There's Amy and Kaffe, Heather, Dick, Jane and a few bits of generic old gingham thrown in for good measure. Robots, buses, boats and firetrucks... oh I hope little Matthew gets as much enjoyment over the years from it as I did making it, but it's doubtful :-)

And the back? Well, I used the back of one of Prints Charming's Free Spirit prints. I liked the muted-ness of the back of the fabric. Another thing I love - this quilt has both the FS printed version of that fabric in the squares ^and^ the hand screen printed version of same thrown in there. It makes me happy indeed.

Regrets

I was just scanning through the blog, and gee, it can be quite the walk down memory lane. There's definitely an advantage to actually spending some time writing the blog.

And I think I have some inspiration for the next project. Oh, hey, Federer has just won. Wow, there's some cheering!

OK, back to the quilting. I really regret giving this one away. While I do genuinely, genuinely like the couple I gave this one to, I really wish I'd kept it for myself. Just thinking of the soft cream minkee backing is making me sad. I wonder if it would be rude to ask for it back? After all, they've had it for three and a half years, so surely it's my turn.

As they live in a different country to me I can't even check if they actually use it, or whether (god forbid) it's been repurposed as a dog blanket, or just stored away in a cupboard never to be seen. And that's the real problem with giving quilts away. If you knew the recipient would love it as much as you do, there'd be no problem...... I'll just have to make another one!

Boat Race 2008

Boat Race 2008, originally uploaded by alisoninlondon.

While I'm listening to this epic Wimbledon battle, I thought I'd blog about this little quilt. It actually is a rectangle, despite the skew-wiffiness of the photo.

The 2007 Boat Race was the first one I'd seen - although I grew up sitting on riverbanks at other rowing regattas. And when I lived in Boston I went along to the Head of the River contest.

But in 2008 the weather was absolutely shocking in London, and they were seriously talking about the boats sinking. I adore the BBC's coverage of this classic Oxford v Cambridge race and am so sad that 2009 was the last year they'll be televising it.

But... the aerial shots really struck me. And I sat and sketched, and sketched some more. Then I started cutting and many, many fabrics were auditioned. In the end, all of the applique was from one of Amy Butler's striped Forest fabrics, and some Kaffe Shot Cotton (for the heads). The black thread tails were left unclipped (my flatmate tells me that's her favourite part) and the dark navy background left unquilted - the natural ripples are so like water it would be impossible to improve on it.

I am so attached to this quilt - it almost looks like an aboriginal design, so with the combo of rowing, and hints of Aus, it was the work of one day, but I guess I had been thinking about the design for years.....

Venice

, originally uploaded by alisoninlondon.

If the colours and reflections of Venice in flood doesn't make you want to paint, sew, draw, or be creative in some other way, then you have no soul...............

Procras-hion-ation

I bought some amazing duck feather cushion inserts from John Lewis a few weeks ago. And the Kaffe Fassett jelly roll quilt I was making was producing a lot of lovely selvedge off-cuts, all conveniently 2.5" wide. Add in a looming management diploma assignment deadline, and of course all I wanted to do was make cushions.....

With piping, using the piping foot and everything.

But my cushion making did not stop there. Oh no. The second cushion I made, in the name of procrastination, was this one. A bit of Amy Butler home dec print and plain bought from Liberty recently = my favourite cushion ever. Trust me, I love this one. The colours look so incredible in the sun.

I still have a couple of other duck feather pillow forms - including a circular one! My next assignment is due on 9 August, so watch this space around that time...........