Quilting Capers...

In the background has been my blue and white quilt. Long time readers will remember Sophie's pink quilt that I stumbled my way through last summer. well I was quite pleased with the outcome considering little firm planning went into it. So this time I have tried to improve on my approach to this one. It is going to be a little bigger, the same thickness as I want to take this places such as the school trip to France in June and I have managed to get the same backing fabric as Sophie's but just a blue version. Sophie thinks this bit is 'cool'. Is it me or is it weird hearing a 6 year old use the word cool? Anyway, moving on....

I wanted to use some of the built-in patterns on the new embroidery machine at school, Janome 350E. So I took in my own threads and after school between doing other things I gradually stitched 9 squares over several days. Took ages too...

I picked a range of blues from my machine embroidery thread collection and using the shade guides on the leaflet I made up my own colour scheme.

TIP: If using machine embroidery threads always use a matching general purpose thread. This is for two reasons, machine embroidery thread is quite weak and the general thread adds some strength when stitching and not clog up underneath the machine and it will be an economical use of your best threads.

I chose just two of the patterns for my quilt...

I did add a little tint of palest green in this pattern.

I then used the same colour scheme with the next pattern.

Tonight I went to my sewing group at the local church hall and I started to work on the next stage of the quilt by putting some of the strips together.

It is too late to take any decent pictures but once I am home tomorrow I will show you an update. I forgot to say that I also have some applique squares as part of this quilt too. It will certainly keep me busy for a while, but I like that. I am taking part in Quilt Improvo with Tall Grass Prairie using this quilt. As part of the challenge I am going to produce a block (or two) for a charity quilt which is also being created by a huge number of participants. My colour scheme for that I Pink and Orange. Unusual combination for me and I am looking forward to getting the fabric for this next week!!

I am also plugging away with my knitting too. So a massive photo session after work tomorrow plus an award which I was given a while back which I have been hanging onto until now because there seemed to be so many flying around I thought that I would wait until things died down a bit.

Take care all.

xx