Blogger's Quilt Festival - Large quilt - Not-so Lonestar

It's Blogger's Quilt Festival time! Amy does a fantastic job of organising this online festival to keep us busy when we're sulking about not being at International Quilt Market. Hello, if you're visiting for the first time I hope you'll stay to have a look around :) If you're a regular I apologise for bombarding you with quilts you've already seen :)

I've made quite a few quilts this year so it's been tough to decide which ones to enter. I've settled on two this time around. This is my first entry, my version of Kaffe Fassett's awesome Not-so Lonestar Quilt.

This quilt was a long time in the making! After a couple of false starts I finally got to grips with it over the Christmas and New Year holidays. It's an absolutely massive quilt, finishing up at over 90" square. To get a better sense of the scale here's a similar picture but with 5'5" Jess in the shot :)

This quilt was a real labour of love! All those diamonds are individually hand cut and there are hundreds of them. I used Innocent Crush by Anna Maria Horner and Soul Blossoms by Amy Butler and just love the way that they play together. As this was such a monster quilt there was no way I was going to attempt quilting myself, so I sent it off to the amazingly talented Trudi Wood for her to work her long-arm magic. The feathers that Trudi quilted have taken this quilt to a whole new level for me.

There are tons more photos in previous posts about this quilt so I won't overload you with them all here. This quilt now inhabits our bedroom and I'm working up the motivation to get a bigger bed to accommodate it more comfortably.

It's not perfectly pieced but it's as good as I'm capable of at this stage in my patchworking life. I think it will be a favourite for a very long time! I smile every time I see it, so that can't be a bad thing :)
Thanks for taking a look around. Don't forget to visit all the other awesome quilts on show in this category. Catch you soon x

Easily distracted - Reene's FAL Q1 round up

I'm just scraping in with my round up, I almost completely forgot (sorry, Katy). I've been really productive this quarter but unfortunately a lot of my productivity has been on secret sewing. I may also have thrown in a few other projects that weren't on my FAL list...so easily distracted! On to the list...

1. The Not-so-Lonestar quilt - as you know I started this one in 2011, it has since been unpicked and started again so it's almost as though I only it started in 2013 ;) I am utterly determined to finish it this year!

I managed to finish this one with the help of Trudi's awesome quilting skills! The post for this one is here.

2. Diamonds, kites and stars EPP - I started this one in September when I was recovering from my op. I feel a bit of cheat adding this one to the list as I've just finished it but as I'd already mentioned it as a WIP here I'm kidding myself that I can get away with it ;)

So I might have cheated with this one as I've already said but I did finish it ;) The post is here.

3. Quilt and Stitch Village competition quilts - I think I'm safe adding this as I have the ideas firmly in my stitching journal and have just sent off the entry forms. Last year Susan and I dared each other to have a go this year, so we have both filled out the forms with trepidation and sent them on their way. In my infinite wisdom I've decided to enter 2 quilts that haven't yet been made. One low volume improv quilt and one bright and fun medallion. These must be done this quarter without fail!

I'm hanging my head in shame for this one as I've still got to finish them! I've almost finished the improv quilt but I've got loads to do on the medallion! They need to be finished and posted by the end of this week so I foresee no sleep for the next few days!

Finally, 4. Crochet blanket - I couldn't find any pictures of this on my computer but there are quite a few over on instagram. I started this when the cold weather set in and would really like to get it finished before Spring other wise it will be relegated to the back of cupboard somewhere :) So far I have 9 rows completed of a total of 16.

I made zero progress on this one as I've learnt to knit instead! I never thought it would happen but it kind of has. I'm part way through making a cardigan for Jess.... you can see where this is heading can't you...another WIP!

So a 50% success rate...definite room for improvement! At least it's not long before I can share with you some of my secret sewing that put a spanner in the works for my FAL success ;) 

Catch you soon x

Jubilation!

Hello All, I can't begin to tell you all just how excited I am right now! I've bored the crowd on Instagram over the last few weeks with pictures of my Not-so-Lonestar quilt and today that will cease (for the time being anyway) because I've finished it!!!!!!!!! I can't believe it but it's true :)

I completely love it! I feel a bit like Bruce Forsyth today when I say that this is my favourite quilt to date.

 It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, there are plenty of duff points and bias issues but the fabric is so gorgeous and busy that those things don't really matter. I actually feel a bit bereft that it's finished. Well, not quite finished because it still has to be quilted but I'm not doing that myself...no chance, this beaut will be heading over to Trudi to work her long-arm magic :)

It's really tricky to capture the scale of this quilt so I took a pic of it with Jess by the side as a guide, she's about 5'5" :)

 When I took this project back out of the WIP box at Christmas I was really anxious that I wouldn't have enough fabric left to complete it as I'd started it in 2011 and wasn't sure how easy it would be to get hold of Innocent Crush and Soul Blossoms now. Thankfully the angst was unnecessary as I have this lovely pile of fabric left!

I'm so pleased I'll be able to use these fabrics in other projects in the years to come :) I think you'll be pleased that I've got all this left too because it means that I'm feeling generous with the scraps from the making of the quilt! There's 290g of scraps of pretty much all the prints I used in the quilt. They're all really useable sizes so I'm sure they'll be very handy for scrappy projects.

As a thank you for all the encouragement I'm giving this lovely scrap pile away! You get up to 3 chances to win:
1. To be in with a chance to win just leave a comment here.
2. If you're a follower, new or regular, leave another comment.
3. Share the giveaway news and leave another comment here letting me know you've shared.

Please make sure I can contact you if you happen to win, (no-reply bloggers I mean you!) I'll draw a winner with Random Number Generator on Friday 24th January 2014 around 8pm (GMT).

Thanks for cheering me on from the sidelines :) Catch you soon x

Edited to add: Giveaway is now closed. The winner was Mrs FlyingBlind - Hadley.