Bloggers' Quilt Festival Autumn 2014

Thanks for popping in to see my entry in the Bloggers' Quilt Festival.  I haven't managed many finished quilts since the last festival (no surprise there!) and didn't think I'd be entering this time round, but Nicky reminded me about the mini category and so here I am!

I made this little quilt, 'City Walk' (naming quilts isn't something I usually do but I felt that participating in a blog hop and designing a pattern for Oakshott warranted a quilt name!) in July when I was part of an Oakshott blog hop and is designed around the traditional 'walking triangles' block.  I wrote a rather ridiculously long tutorial for it as part of the blog hop and you can find that here, should you wish to make your own version.


The quilt is made from a F8 bundle (plus a piece of wadding and a piece of fusible fleece) and I decided that I wanted to make something useful as well as decorative so this little quilt also doubles as a block roll (to keep pieces in the right place as you're piecing, going back and forth to the ironing board or taking your sewing to a friend's house) and will hang on the wall when not in use.


The quilt top is hand pieced (I draw round freezer paper templates to give me a sewing line, remove the templates, cut them out with an estimated quarter inch seam allowance and then hand piece using a running back stitch along the marked lines) and machine quilted (in the ditch).  It is finished with a traditional knife-edge finish (rather than binding), which gives a nice sharp edge to a quilt.

The quilt is 20" square, so just sneaks into the mini category.  It has 224 pieces in the top (each block, consisting of four walking triangles, finishes at 6" square), including the borders and cornerstones and I must admit that I'm quite rather pleased with how it turned out!


As I mentioned, it's also a block roll and here it is keeping some pieces from a current project safe (I have a habit of forgetting which particular square goes where and sewing something different from my plan which usually then needs unpicking):

And here it is rolled up (with the pieces inside but you'll have to trust me on that!) and secured with the tie which is attached to the top edge (you can just see it folded over to the front in the photo above):

Quilt stats:

Finished size: 20" x 20"
Pattern: based on a traditional 'Walking Triangles' block
Piecing: by hand, using freezer paper templates and a running back stitch
Piecing thread: Aurifil 50wt 2600 (dove grey)
Quilting: by machine, in the ditch
Quilting thread: Aurifil 50wt 2310 (light beige)


Thank you for taking the time to read this post (or just look at the photos!), I'm off to see what everyone else has been up to!


P.S.  This may be my entry to the festival but it wouldn't be a blog post without some photos of Archie, would it?!!

As regular readers will know, Archie has recently had a flare up of a back injury/arthritis and so is no longer allowed to climb stairs or steps.  As I can't close off my stairs, I've had to get a couple of stair gates fitted (I have a lovely brother!) and if I'm spending time upstairs on an afternoon (either sewing or sleeping) then I carry him up.  He's fine sleeping downstairs overnight but if I go upstairs during the day he starts to fret.  Carrying him up means he's happy (and asleep!) which makes me happy and also means I can concentrate on sewing without having to hang over the banister every few minutes to reassure him I'm still there!  Of course, what goes up must come down...

I'd like to come back downstairs now, if you don't mind.

I know this thing opens but I just don't seem to be able to get it to work

*sigh* Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease may I come down?