Another String to my ‘Crafty’ Bow’……..well sort of.

29^th August 2016

  There are so many ladies, including my wonderful friend Nicki,  on the Helping Hands Facebook Group   making beautiful patchwork quilts  for various charity projects and I’ve sat back in awe of their amazing work, believing that I would never be able to make anything like that because it’s way out of my skill set.    But when one of the ladies made a request for a quilt for herself, it was the perfect opportunity for me to attempt my first ever quilt block. 

Her idea was to ask people in the group to each make a 12” block, with the theme of ‘Loving Life’ and then she planned to piece the quilt herself.

 I set about finding a block template with a square in the centre so that I could include one of my cross stitched square,…………. because cross stitch is my thing!

The block I found is called ‘Garden Path’ and it fits the bill exactly, so armed with four fat quarters I made my first attempt.

After lots of encouragement from the ladies of the group and one comment that I had chucked myself in at the deep end, having not chosen the simplest of blocks for my first attempt, I was fairly pleased with the results for a first go, although it was far from perfect and not good enough to be sent.

Next I got to thinking about what I would stitch for the centre of my actual block and came across a perfect design from Michael Powell called ‘Peacock Hearts’.   The original had Red hearts but I decided to change the colour to Blue, to match in with the fabric I had chosen.

My second block was a little better than the first.
I managed to match the trees at the bottom on the Blue fabric but failed on the top panels and I also failed to get the pattern straight on the Yellow fabric, making it look wonky even though the panels are in fact straight

 

Anyway, after some more encouragement for Nicki and some of the other ladies, I decided to send it off and am hoping to see it incorporated into the finished quilt.

Happy Stitching
Sue
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