Catching up on quilting

Way back last autumn, I mentioned that I was trying to complete a quilt I started the year before that, and it was taking ages to hand quilt the spirals... Well, although I didn't blog about it at the time, I got it finished in time for Christmas, and it's been on my bed for quite a while.

Here's a couple of photos of some of the details I'm particularly pleased with. Please excuse the fluff on the first photo - the cat loves to sleep on the end of the bed, and I didn't realise quite how much fluff he'd left behind til I'd taken the photo!

Me? Leave fluff? Never!

Might actually be getting the hang of neat corners! And the spirals aren't too bad either.

The purple backing/border fabric went so well with the batik strips

Since completing that one, I've also completed a third large quilt - for Squidgeling T, when he goes off to uni later this year. (He's doing a degree in 'How to be a Rock Star', aka BA in Professional Musicianship on his bass guitar). I found a lovely layer cake in denim blues and greys, and Squidgeling T asked for bright red to set them off. Here's how it ended up:

Front of quilt - the red really makes it pop!

Some of the larger layer cake squares were cut into four and edged with the red, while the rest were kept whole - then a large square and an edged square were alternated. The backing fabric - which I used to edge the quilt as well - was a beautiful denim blue, and I found a matching variegated denim and grey thread to hand stitch the quilting pattern. After the free-form spirals on the last quilt, I went very geometric again; stitched in the ditch along the main join lines, then stitched inside both the small squares and the large squares, because otherwise there'd have been far too much unquilted area between stitched points.

Back - I used up the leftover layer cake squares to add a stripe.
You can just about make out the quilting pattern on the plain blue
if you look hard...

I have to say that the border on this one is probably the best I've ever done - proper right angles and everything! I finished it yesterday evening, and it was on T's bed last night.

Cracked it on the corners!

Next project? Well, I'm going to make Squidgeling J a quilt for her bed. We found a rather nice pattern to use with a blue batik jelly roll;

Working out how many strips from each design of fabric I'd need...

Blues, aquas and pinky-purples in the mix

Imagine this pattern, repeated over and over

I also have a charm pack of very bright coloured patterns which I'd like to use to make another lap quilt, using the same pattern as above. Lap quilts are so useful when I'm sitting typing...or having a snooze on the settee when a migraine or other illness hits.

Such zingy colours!

And yes, I have realised that this isn't getting much writing done. I will get there. Eventually.