Sunday 4 August 2013

A Title Would Go Here if I Could Think of One...

A couple of posts ago (yes the posts are so infrequent May wasn't that long ago on this blog - sad but true) while at Retreat in Maldon doing my bit for the local economy at The Village Patch, I picked up a pre-printed mini wholecloth "Ribbons and Lace" by The Stencil Company.  Made it into a mini quilt finished at 16 1/2" square, the binding was stitched down in company Friday night while enjoying the fun and friendship of our regular 6-Midnight stitchy hijinks...so, without further ado...presenting...Ta Dah!...

my first ever Wholecloth Quilt...

Hand quilted using Mölnlycke Sytrȧd Core Quilt Thread colour 6644...the lovely turquoise colour quilting thread thread just demanded to be purchased at the same time as the cloth and I couldn't resist. It was a good way to practise the hand quilting and test drive the wholequilt concept without committing to a new UFO large project. The only thing I'd not do again is use a colour thread that was so close to the colour of the printing - it would have been so much easier to see where there was wonky not so even stitching and some not so invisible stop/starts and I didn't catch them all but live and learn and I was treating it as a learning project so not going to beat myself up over that. 

I was a bit concerned about how the printed design would wash out as it was printed with quite thick blue lines (almost the same colour as the thread I used) but I followed the instructions of simply soaking in cold water (and it's so nippy outside the water out of the tap is icy) for 30-60 minutes (so I left it for the full hour just to be sure) and it was just gone, like magic, no trace left.


I've not pressed it after washing (I did dry it flat on a towel) as I like the "crinkled antique-y touch me" look rather than the "polished perfect do not touch" look of a finished quilt, I want quilts that look like they can be used not hung in an art gallery, but that is just me so please forgive the wrinkles...

And I realised when uploading the photo...that is OPAM ticked off for August as well, wahoo!!! One project, two ticks, gotta like that :)

Happy Stitching...

6 comments:

Fiona said...

It's just gorgeous... so sensible to try something new on a smaller project..... I also like a wrinkled antiquey look...
Love how you have framed it up... great job...
Hugz

marina said...

love your mini it looks great.
well done on a beautiful finish!

Anonymous said...

gorgeous Annette this is awesome what a wonderful job you have done.xx

Lyn said...

what a great idea..and it saves marking out the design..sometimes it is just a bit hard trying to think of a blog heading

Christine M said...

You've done a great job Annette.

Shay said...

It's beautiful. Seriously. Im with you on the antique crinkly ,looks like its been used finishes. Much nicer to look at than the perfect looking pieces.

You've got me thinking now that maybe I should try something similar to this for practicing hand quilting...